


Forming the Whole

by Sexycanofsoup



Series: Becoming Family [2]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sexycanofsoup/pseuds/Sexycanofsoup
Summary: Laurence finds a happy ending for himself in part one, or so he thinks, but as his child is born and he becomes a father, he learns that there are a lot of loose threads in his life that badly need tending to. Little seems to hate him, his daughter won't stop screaming, and he keeps kissing Granby--oh, and there's another dragon on the way. With everything happening, Laurence can't help feeling like his life is spinning wildly out of control. Can he bring peace to his ever-expanding household, or are things destined to split apart?
Relationships: Augustine Little/Tenzing Tharkay, John Granby/Augustine Little, John Granby/William Laurence, John Granby/William Laurence/Augustine Little/Tenzing Tharkay, John Granby/William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay, William Laurence/Augustine Little, William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay
Series: Becoming Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1233353
Comments: 23
Kudos: 20





	1. Ready or Not

He was in the process of pulling a rusted nail out from the wardrobe when Granby walked in. Laurence, who had thought himself alone in the house, was badly startled, and whacked his head on the shelf. Granby was unable to completely hide his snickering.

“Easy there, old timer. I come in peace.”

Laurence tossed the hammer onto the floor. He’d been working at the nail for half an hour with little success and was ready to set the whole thing aflame. Granby crossed the room and peeked in to get a look.

“I thought Tharkay told you he’d deal with it when he got back?”

Laurence crossed his arms over his chest, fully aware of how childish the gesture looked. “If I let him do everything all the time he’ll start to ask himself why he keeps me around.”

“If nothing else, you’re nice to look at.” Granby retrieved the hammer. “Here. Hold the shelf in place. I’ll try not to crush your fingers.”

Laurence’s irritation with the shelf faded as he watched his friend go to work. This close he could see the tip of Granby’s tongue poking out the side of his mouth in his concentration as he dug at the nail. His face must have expressed its fondness because when Granby glanced up to adjust his hold, he caught sight of it, and paused.

“What?” 

“It’s nothing.”

Granby’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. It created a small V between his brows that would turn into a permanent furrow as he aged. Laurence relented.

“I’m glad you’re here, that’s all.”

Granby’s eyes dropped. A small smile tugged at his mouth. “Yeah, well, make sure you let us know when you get tired of us.”

“That won’t happen.”

Granby tapped his hook against the shelf. He looked like he wanted to say something. Instead he went back to working on the nail with more enthusiasm than ever. Laurence smiled. It had been over four months since he’d made the offer to move in, but apparently it was easier said than done. The servants’ quarters had been a lot more ragged than expected. When they’d discovered a patch of mold as big as a rug beneath the bed, Laurence had been ready to abandon the room to nature, but Temeraire insisted he wanted them all to remain in the small house, and so restorative measures had been taken. 

There were also personal wrinkles to smooth. Izkierka and Immortalis needed pavilions, as well as to accustom themselves to the move. But mainly it was Little who needed convincing. The usually stoic Captain had been agitated of late. His movements and words were uncharacteristically snappish, and he tended to keep a hold on Granby whenever Laurence was in the room. He didn’t blame him, but he was beginning to lose patience with the man. It was obvious Granby was hurt by the lack of trust, and there wasn’t really anything any of them could do to fix it. Tharkay said time was the great healer, but Laurence knew that some hurts only worsened with time. He hoped that wasn’t the case here.

“There!” Granby gave the shelf a solid thump. The freshly hammered nail held it in place. “Not bad for a one-handed invert, ey?”

Laurence ruffled his friend’s hair, a habit he had recently developed but was already quite fond of. It made Granby look like he’d just gone for a ride on his dragon. 

“Let me make you some lunch as payment.”

“Can’t. Only stopped in to say hello. Izkierka’s waiting for me to take her up to join Temeraire. She gets so suspicious when he meets with other females.”

“Surely she knows he doesn’t have that sort of interest in Perscitia? They’re friends. Fellow scholars.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s beyond seeing reason at this point. If she doesn’t ask him for another egg soon, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”

The words didn’t sound like a joke, but he still he had to laugh. “Let’s hope he isn’t as insensitive to these matters as his captain is.”

Granby blinked. Laurence patted his back. “Come. I’ll walk you out.”

Izkierka had not been patient in her waiting. She was writing rude words in Temeraire’s sand table when they found her. She eyed Laurence and huffed out an annoyed breath.

“If you cause another fight between them, I’ll burn the skin off your face.”

Laurence darted his eyes over his shoulder in the hopes of seeing some other person she could be talking to. “A fight? John, you didn’t tell me there had been-”

“It’s nothing to be worried about. Nothing new, anyway. He’ll drop it soon enough. He always does.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’d blame yourself, as you always do, and it pisses me off to see you take fault where there is none.”

Granby went to his dragon. Laurence knew he shouldn’t let his friend leave. He’d been paying closer attention to his instincts lately and learned that when his stomach turned over and sank it meant the opportunity for mistakes was at hand. But he didn’t trust his words. Instead, he followed Granby and grabbed one of Izkierka’s many spines to haul himself up.

Granby’s sigh was exasperation mixed with fondness. “Will…”

Laurence pulled his carabiner from his pocket and clipped himself to Izkierka’s collar. “John.”

“I never invited you to climb aboard,” Izkierka snapped, but whatever response he would have found was unnecessary when Peter came pounding up the path like his legs were trying to leave him.

“It’s the commander!” he puffed. “The baby!”

Izkierka raised her head. “It comes?”

Laurence was aware of the blood pounding in his ears, but not much else.

“It’s too early,” Granby said. “We were meant to have another half month at least.”

Peter was bent over double, gripping his knees and gulping down air. If there was more to his message, it would never be heard. Granby slapped his dragon’s neck. “Fly, girl. Quickly now.”

Izkierka normally wouldn’t have responded to such a sharp tone, but this time her wings sprung from her back and she leapt with enough force to send them dangling at the end of their carabiners. Laurence would not have righted himself without Granby.

“It’s going to be okay, Will.”

He slowly became aware that he was strangling Granby’s arms. He didn’t let go. 

“She isn’t young. What if the baby--”

He couldn’t make himself say the words aloud, but his thoughts would not be censored. He thought of the baby, his baby, coming into the world, with a pale blue sheen and completely still. Or worse. What if the strain were too great on Jane and she…? He shuddered.

“This was a terrible idea. I should have been more careful. She didn’t even want a baby. She did this for me. What if--”

“She’ll be fine. She’s stronger than all of us, remember?”

But that wasn’t true. Every scar on her body was proof she could be hurt. Why was the baby so early? That meant something was wrong, didn’t it? Something was wrong, and dear Jane would pay the price for it and there was nothing he could do about it now. He put a hand to his stomach. “Why couldn’t it be me instead?”

Granby’s laugh went too high and cut off abruptly. “Don’t start with your martyrdom now. I haven’t the head for it.”

“I want Tenzing.”

“Believe me, If I could bring him here, I would. He’s the only one who can reliably calm you when you get hysterical.”

Laurence wanted to deny his supposed hysterical-ness, realized he couldn’t, and took a steadying breath. He needed to treat this as a tactical mission. They had a casualty mired behind enemy lines. He knew how to deal with emergencies, even if none of them had ever been fetus-related. He forced himself to look around. Already he could see Jane’s estate in the distance.

“Whatever happens…” he began.

“Don’t.”

Laurence steamrolled right over him. “No matter what happens, promise you’ll still come live with us. I don’t want to be without you.”

“This is hardly the time to--”

“Please, John. Promise.”

“She’s going to be fine,” he said, which wasn’t the same as a promise. “You’ll see.”

Their landing was not gentle, but Izkierka took care to keep still as they unclipped and scrambled down her side. Her behavior made him keenly aware that his own dragon was not present. It was probably a good thing. Temeraire was much more invested in “the egg” than Izkierka was, and would no doubt be mimicking Laurence’s panic were he near. Still, he felt selfish for wanting his dragon here. No doubt Temeraire was spiritedly engaged in some form of dragon politics, blissfully unaware that their lives were turning upside down.

The footman met them at the door, his face red and shiny enough to say everything Laurence didn’t allow him to. He was shoved aside as Laurence raced down the hall at a sprint. He crashed down multiple hallways and half a dozen doors before he realized this was an inefficient way to find the baby’s mother. A hand touched his shoulder.

“She’s upstairs.”

Tharkay’s voice and touch were probably the only things that could have broken through to him in that moment. Laurence clutched his arm and opened his mouth but was shushed by a reproving stare. “Calm yourself, Will. This isn’t what she needs from you now.”

“But how did you get here?” Granby said. “I thought you were dealing with the renters.”

What he meant was _prospective_ renters. They had thus far had little luck in filling the main house—not that they’d been trying particularly hard. Neither Tharkay nor Laurence had a true need for the rent money, but it seemed a shame to let it molder. As they endeavored to bring the place back to its former glory with a variety of repairs, they had casually let it be known that the place was available. However, despite initial interest, it soon became known that three full grown dragons inhabited the premises. They still got people in weekly to pretend at serious inquiry, when really they were there to get a look at the dragons, as well as the weirdoes who lived with them. Temeraire was all for banning them from the grounds, and Izkierka had even threatened one with fire when he dared insinuate she was a “vicious-looking creature,” but Granby insisted that all guests be treated with courtesy, and so Tharkay, the most level-headed and patient of them all, had volunteered to deal with them.

“They canceled when I warned them of Temeraire’s size. No great loss. The man smelled strongly of garlic and onions.”

“Tenzing,” Laurence said, a warning to get on with it.

“I came to bring Jane the Frankincense oil for her joints. Captain Harcourt swears by it. Of course, when I got here the oils were no longer of much consequence.”

Laurence didn’t know why he was standing around. He kept his hold on Tharkay’s arm and all but dragged him back down the hall toward the stairs. He climbed with the urgency of prey, but the way he stormed into the birthing room more resembled a predator. The door banged against the inner wall, startling all those inside, except Jane, who looked more red and shiny than her footman.

“Marvelous. The scoundrel himself appears. And he’s brought company. Splendid. The perfect time for an audience.”

If Laurence had known this was the room she was holed up in, he wouldn’t have entered as he did. All his indignation and panic shriveled beneath her murderous contempt for the world.

“If god exists, I’m going to castrate the bastard, along with all his sons. This indignation is not to be born.”

Granby was startled by the venom in her voice, but Emily, who was industriously sponging her mother’s face and chest with a wet cloth, was unfazed. “Shall we put them to fanning you?” she asked. “The open window doesn’t seem to be doing much.”

The open window was, in fact, doing plenty. Chill November air had made the room a veritable freezer, but still, the enterprising mother sweated.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that boy of yours,” Jane said, latching onto her daughter’s attention. “I’ll castrate him this very minute if you bring him to me. Just let him try to put you in a similar state. I’ll rip his balls off with my bare hands.”

Emily laughed. The sound echoed inside Laurence and brought his agitation up to new levels.

“My darling Jane…” his voice was hoarse and powerless. Jane had no patience for it.

“If you plan on being a nattering ninny, I’ll feed you to Excidium.”

The dragon, thinking he was being called, put his head up to the window. “Jane—”

“Not another word until you eat,” she snapped.

The longwing hung his head, looking far too pitiful for a creature of his immensity. “But how can I think of food when a demon is clawing its way out of you?”

Jane clenched her teeth and grunted as a contraction seized her. Emily put her hand out to be strangled in a claw-like grip. Excidium let out the dragon-approximation of a moan but cut himself off when he caught sight of Laurence. “You!”

It was a testament to his despair that the fantastically astute dragon had missed him this long. “I shall trample you to a pulp! What possible reason should you have to do this to her when we already have Emily?”

Laurence’s hands were endeavoring to yank all his hair out by the roots. “I didn’t know of her intent to bear another until it was too late!”

“Liar! You who have been mating with her for years knowing full well the gruesomeness of human birth—”

“Excidium, please. You aren’t helping,” Emily said.

The dragon groaned again and turned away from the window. 

“If you don’t want that cow, can I have it?” Izkierka asked. Granby hissed her to silence, and Jane hunched over as another contraction hit. Laurence had not been in the right mind to time the spacing, but knew, even without precision, that they were awfully close together.

“Where’s the doctor!”

Jane made a noise like an overboiled kettle. “If I wanted another useless lump in here, I’d call in Kennet.”

Laurence couldn’t bring up much sympathy for the footman in a time like this, but maybe once the child was safely delivered he’d get the man a fruit basket.

Tharkay pushed passed through with a steaming bowl of water and set it down on the card table beside the bed. Laurence hadn’t noticed him leaving to get it and was flustered to note that he was being far less helpful than his partner. Jane noticed it too.

“I suppose you can stay,” she said as he lifted her gown to peek between her legs.

Laurence gave an instinctive squawk of indignation before he remembered that these were not the sets of eyes he needed to protect her from. Everyone was either an invert, non-human, or a relation. Besides, if Jane had ever had an ounce of modesty, it had been eradicated by the baby.

“Fuck!” she managed through tightly clenched teeth. She was holding tightly to Emily who was trying to massage her back with her other hand.

“Almost there,” Tharkay said.

“You said that twenty minutes ago!”

“I lied. This time you really are almost there.”

How Tharkay could so carelessly look death in the face, Laurence didn’t know. Had he been in a more capable state he would have pulled the man out of reach. Flecks of spit dotted Jane’s lips. Her teeth were bared, and air hissed through them as loud as a snuffling dog.

“How do you know?” Granby asked. He was extraordinarily pale and determinedly looking at the floor.

“Because her opening is about the size of a cricket ball,” Tharkay said as if it were the most ordinary question in the world. “When it’s the size of an orange it’ll be time to push.”

“How do you know that?” Laurence found himself asking. But he was not to be answered. A soft knock at the open door made all their heads turn.

“is there anything I can do?” Little asked, clutching a vase, of all things.

Tharkay eyed it with obvious curiosity. Little looked down at his hands and looked startled to see it there. “I guess I thought John might need it.”

Laurence wondered if he had dissociated from his body and was now a spectral spectator floating above them all. “For what?” 

This time, his question was answered in deed, rather than words, because Granby happened to look up just as Tharkay was lifting the gown again. He saw the gaping hole between Jane’s legs and lunged for the vase, getting it just in time to catch his vomit. Tharkay sighed. His hands were bright red from washing with the steaming water.

“Get him out of here, will you?” he said to Little.

“No, no, I want to help.” Granby’s voice was raw yet determined. But the next moment Tharkay flipped the nightgown back entirely and he retched again.

“ _Now_ ,” Tharkay said, testiness creeping into his voice. “I have to focus. I’ve only done this once before.”

Laurence shook his head to clear it and went to his lover’s side. “And I?”

“Take over for Emily before she needs a hook like John's. Your Jane has a grip like a gorilla.”

Laurence didn’t need to be told twice. He sat on the edge of the bed and caught her hand up tight. “Jane, if I could take this from you—”

“But you can’t, so shut up.”

He clamped his lips together and increased the pressure on her hand. He looked across at Emily who was also beginning to perspire. “Mama…”

The bright light of Jane’s fury dimmed as she pressed a clumsy kiss to her daughter’s head. “Over soon,” she grunted, though whether she was comforting her daughter, or herself, Laurence couldn’t say.

_Just be okay._ Laurence thought the words with the kind of fervent devotion he had never been able to rile up for god. _Just be okay, and I swear I’ll never hurt anyone again. I’ll listen when Tenzing tells me to eat my peas, and I’ll read Temeraire whatever awful math books he wants only please, please, let this go right._

“Are you ready?” Tharkay’s voice was as grim as a pharaoh’s tomb. 

“Just get this fucking thing out of me.”

They were the last coherent words she spoke for a while. What followed was a series of grunts and curses and bitten off gasps that sliced daggers through every one of Laurence’s feeling organs. He didn’t realize he was continuing his senseless prayers out loud until Emily joined in with her own. Laurence wanted to flee and hated himself for it. He wanted to do something, but her pain was beyond his power. He apologized over and over, his lips touching the back of her hand as he spoke because he was pressing it so tightly to his mouth.

Right near the end, she let loose a single scream that tore Laurence straight in half. It was made all the worse because the scream bore his name. He answered it with a litany of his own. “I’m here, jane. I’m here.”

“Here’s the head!” Tharkay’s voice was a strange mix of triumph and terror. “This is it, Jane! Give me another push. One last mighty push. Come on!”

Jane’s cry was the angriest screech Laurence had ever heard, but as it faded it was cut apart by a high shrill wail.

“Oh,” Laurence said. He’d almost forgotten that a baby was the cause of all of this. 

Tharkay’s laugh was loud and borderline maniacal as he shouted for a towel. He clutched the bloody creature to his chest. “Well done, Jane. Very well done, indeed.”

Jane fell back against the pillows with a shaky laugh. “Even worse than I remember.”

Laurence couldn’t see through the tears in his eyes. He fell onto her shoulder, and for the next few seconds could do nothing except give himself over to his relief.

Jane put a hand to his hair. “Leave off that, and kiss me,” she said. She was the most beautiful woman in the whole damn world and he would never let himself forget it. He struggled to right himself and gave her the kiss she asked for, though he almost missed her mouth and left her face wet with his mess.

“I suppose you’d best let us hold it then,” Jane said in her usual gruff way and held out her arms. Considering she was the one who’d gone through it all, it was strange that she was already the best recovered.

Emily’s voice was so quiet it was nearly lost as she said, “We were right. It _was_ a girl.”

Tharkay had given the baby’s face a few swipes with the towel to clear the worst of the gunk away, but she was still wet with blood and mucus as Jane took her and kissed the slick hair covering her crown. Laurence looked at the baby, his daughter, and felt strangely numb. For the last four months, he had thought of nothing but this creature, pushing everything else to the fringes as he meticulously accounted for each passing day, and now…

_I know you’re not at fault for the pain you caused,_ he thought _, but I’m not sure I forgive you._

Maybe this was why so many men didn’t stay with their wives during the birth. They’d see their children as monsters by the time they found their way out of the womb.

He put a very careful finger forward and touched her chest. It was moving so rapidly, like a small featherless bird.

“Should she be breathing so quickly?” he asked, concerned for the monster despite her near-murder of Jane.

Tharkay laughed again, but he probably would have laughed at anything. His eyes looked manic, the way Laurence had sometimes seen soldiers when coming out alive after a dangerous rout. “That’s normal and will slow as she grows.”

Before he was ready, Jane was pushing the baby into his hands. She was too light. Surely _that_ wasn’t also normal. How could a human be this small and live? And she wasn’t happy. A lot of the redness was agitation, not blood. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut. He made the mistake of looking at her belly where Tharkay had pinned and clipped the cord and nearly had a reaction like Granby’s. Excidium was right, the dragon way of eggs was far more civilized.

“She has your nose.”

Laurence snapped his face around and found Temeraire’s unblinking gaze by the window.

“How on earth can you tell a thing like that this early?” Jane asked. “Though now that you say it…”

Laurence’s eyes grew wet again. Trancelike, he stood and went to the window where all four dragons were gathered. They were backed up quite a distance to make room, but even then it was a tight fit. Immortalis was on Temeraire’s back and Izkierka was coiled sinuously through them all. She gave no thought to their comfort as she squirmed closer. 

“She’s red, like me.” Her pleasure in this was so great Laurence was half-convinced the dragon had managed it on purpose. “Use that as her name.”

Temeraire made the scoffing sound they had all learned to associate solely with Izkierka. “I should think not! You do not name a hatchling for a color. That would be like calling her lobster, or apple.”

“Apple,” Jane said. Her brow creased in thought.

Laurence looked down at the bundle in his hands. She was squirmy, thankless, and very red. “Apple,” he agreed.

Tharkay laughed yet again as he sat down on the bed. He looked like Laundry wrung out to dry, and groaned when, less than a minute later, he had to spring back up again to catch the afterbirth. Laurence was glad Granby wasn’t there to see it. The glistening blob was truly hideous.

“Excidium,” Jane said.

The dragon, who had been terribly quiet, looked away from the child, to his captain. “Yes. Give it to me.”

Laurence thought he meant the baby, but then Tharkay joined him at the window and set the afterbirth onto the sill. The other dragons made enough room for Excidium to lean in and carefully take the thing in his mouth. He swallowed it and went back to his soulful staring.

“How do I taste?” Jane said. She looked as close to delighted as her exhaustion allowed.

“That wasn’t funny the first time, and it isn’t funny now,” Excidium said. He sounded exceedingly cross, but the way he stared at the baby betrayed his fascination. “It took so long for Emily to walk. I assume this one will be just as bad?”

“Why doesn’t it speak?” Izkierka asked. “Is it rude?”

“You’re the rude one,” Temeraire said. “Everyone knows human babies are useless fleshbags.”

The comparison was far ruder than Izkierka’s question, but none of the dragons saw it as anything but fact. Laurence looked at the fleshbag and managed a weak smile. He couldn’t wait to tell Granby their daughter got her uselessness from him. The thought reminded him that he had yet to greet her. 

“John! Augustine!”

The pair appeared quickly, albeit without much decorum. Granby was still white as a sheet. “Is it finally over?”

Laurence cradled his daughter’s tiny head. She was quite a lovely fleshbag. His smile grew wider. “Gentlemen, this is Apple.”


	2. Milk Shortage

Despite his infirmity, Granby was quick to recover once the vaginas were put away. He bounded up to Apple, showing no squeamishness at all as he kissed both her hands and cheeks. “What a darling!” he declared. “I’m half mad with love already, and what a delightful name!”

“My idea,” Izkierka said. Temeraire did not chime in to share the claim.

“Of course it was, you darling creature.” Granby beamed bright enough to challenge the sun. “Spectacular. Truly. Tenzing, old boy, I must fetch you a drink. Never, even in the war, have I seen such dauntless heroism.”

Laurence remembered that somewhere in the house there was a vase full of vomit and found himself laughing. Granby joined in, making a sound as bright and clear as a church bell, and it was so lovely, and Laurence was so fond of him, and so deeply relieved that everything had come out all right, that he pushed Apple into her sister’s waiting arms, seized Granby around the neck, and planted a smacking kiss to his mouth.

That put Granby right back into his previous state. “Laurence!”

But Laurence would not be stopped. He went to Jane next, kissed her again, and finally came to Tharkay, who he lifted up by the waist, twirled around, and kissed so enthusiastically he heard someone’s back crack.

“He’s right,” Laurence said. He could be forgiven a little hoarseness in the moment. “You were magnificent.”

Tharkay looked so beautiful (despite the blood, slime and sweat) that Laurence was forced to kiss him again, and then again. And many more times despite Tharkay trying to fend him off with hands and words. “Surely it’s somebody else’s turn!”

Laurence figured that with the level of pleasure that kissing his nestmate came with, it need _never_ be anyone else’s turn. But, as always, Laurence bowed to his partner’s wishes and snagged the nearest body—a body that just-so-happened to belong to Little. The man eyed him with wide eyes. It was the disbelief more than anything else that did it. His childhood love of dares, together with the sense of completion it would bring, made Laurence pull him in and peck him on the mouth. Little gaped at him like a stunned fish.

“He’s one of those crazy emotional drunks, isn’t he?” Emily asked. No one in the room seemed inclined to argue with her.

“I’m so happy,” Laurence said. “Everyone is alive.”

“Nice to see how low those standards are,” Jane said. “Now get out. All of you. I need to nap for a year.” 

Laurence was half-way through the door when he realized that Emily was the exception to the rule. He wanted to accuse Jane of favoritism, but Tharkay used physical force to tug him from the room.To all their surprise, they found the head maid, Anna, waiting for them with a tray of drinks. Granby downed two in quick succession, but Laurence had no room for anything but questions.

“Has the wet nurse been called?”

She bowed her head. “I’m afraid it’s no good, sir. The mistress’s baby came before the nurse could deliver her own.”

Granby, who had a glass in each hand, set the emptier one back down on the tray. “What are you saying?”

Little frowned. “She’s saying her milk doesn’t flow yet. I don’t understand. Whose idea was it to choose a woman with such close confinement days?”

Laurence tried to keep his face looking innocent. He remembered that when interviewing the woman, she’d been pregnant, but he’d been assured that her milk always came in on time post-delivery, and she had been of such a pleasant disposition he couldn’t help but want her for the baby.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Tharkay said, proving, once again, to be the noblest and most loyal of partners. “It's finding a replacement that needs all our immediate attention. I have the list of the candidates we interviewed on my desk back at the house. With some luck they won’t all have already claimed other opportunities of employment.”

Little’s frown had yet to shrink. “And if they have? Commander Roland has made it clear she has no intention to bond with the child at this early stage. It’ll only make surrendering the child more difficult if she’s forced to nurse her. Honestly, this was done poorly. Why didn’t we have a backup?”

Granby tossed the remains of the second glass back and set it down on the tray with a satisfying clink. “Never mind your pessimism. Just leave it to me.”

Laurence felt a bit of guilty relief when Tharkay took Granby by the elbow to lead him to the stairs. “We’ll do it together.”

They were not yet out of earshot when Little turned to him, disapproval still emanating. It didn’t bode well for Laurence’s frazzled nerves. The way Little raised his eyebrows was just the icing on the cake. Laurence dismissed the maid and stepped in closer.

“I’m not going to apologize for kissing him, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

Little was surprised to be so directly addressed. Laurence thought about using that as an opportunity to slip passed him in search of a couch to collapse on, but cowardice had never been his strong suit, and his newly minted fatherhood hadn’t changed that. He spoke again.

“I won’t presume to know your heart, but I've heard that you've been fighting with John, and if I'm in any way the cause, I will remind you that there's no man more loyal and you do him a great disservice with your doubts.”

Little’s nostrils flared. Small lines around his lips appeared as he tightened them. “This is hardly the time to discuss—”

“On the contrary, what better time than now, when the situation is still salvageable.“

Little marked every word with crisp enunciation. “You don’t know what you speak of.”

“How much longer are you going to punish him for the slight to your ego? What must he do to buy back your trust?”

“I see that my ego, as you say, is held in such low esteem as to beget accusations. Very well. I’ll make it clear. It's not my trust in him that's been broken.”

“Your actions these past few months claim otherwise.”

“My actions these past few months have been attempts, made in vain, to protect him from _you_.”

Laurence, who had a finger out, ready to stab into Little’s chest for emphasis, lost some of his surety. “I would never hurt John.”

“And yet you have. Ceaselessly, and cruelly you use him, giving buoyancy to his hopes. Perhaps the words and touch come easily to you, but I assure you they are not so easily received. John can’t help but squirrel away each moment away as a treasure, to polish and protect forever—moments you dole out as passing fancy and forget as soon as they have passed.”

“That isn’t true. I don’t forget, and I don’t treat his feelings lightly. I know that he—”

“No. You _don’t_ understand. He’ll replay that kiss in his mind over and over and over and over until he is _sick_ with it. You blind fool. You see nothing. You know nothing. And if it were in my power to remove your presence from his life forever I would do it without a second thought!”

Laurence took a step back. His chest felt like a hollowed out nut. “I was just trying to express my happiness.”

“And are we all to be made slaves to your happiness?”

Laurence had never seen Little display such temper. He watched the way his chest heaved and had no thought of how to respond. Little didn’t take the silence well. With every breath he added fuel to the fire in the pit of his stomach.

“I accuse you of not understanding, but perhaps it is I who stands in the greater darkness, because for all my analysis I cannot fathom the reason you treat your own partner thus. Did not Tenzing make his feelings clear enough for you? He is not a sentimental man, but he is an honest one. You must know that he centers all his efforts on you. Every thought and action can be traced back to the same source. Even if you do not treat John seriously, I had thought you had extended that courtesy to your partner, at least. He, the one who brought you back your memories when no one, not even your own dragon could. After all his years of service, what ill could he have done you to be treated this way?”

Laurence shook his head, a slow repetitive motion that did not soon end. “No. Tenzing sent me after him. He protects him, loves him, John can awaken no jealousy in him. He knows where my heart belongs.”

There was no softening in Little’s features. “Perhaps he does, but do you?”

He didn't give the opportunity to answer as he turned away, and Laurence didn't call after him. He stared daggers into the man’s descending back, but his anger couldn't stay with him long. The words spoken were too frightful to waste in anger. Unknowingly, he began to pace. He told himself Little had to be mistaken, but Immortalis’s captain had proved wrong on too few occasions to feel confident. The man was not known for his verbosity, and when he did speak it was after careful consideration. Before their most recent conversation, Laurence would have been one of the many who could have sworn he had never heard the man speak false. Now…he did not know what to think.

He was desperate for trustworthy advice, but all those he would normally consult were unavailable. Tharkay and Granby were gone, Jane had just popped out a baby, and Temeraire, a quick look out the window showed, was being held hostage by Little, who was outside with all the dragons, save for Izkierka, who was with her captain.

There were others whose opinion he respected but could not trust due to the nature of the relationships at stake. He wouldn't endanger his friends just because he was having difficulty understanding them. 

He had already consigned himself to dealing with it alone, when he remembered Berkeley. Ever since retiring to the country he hadn’t seen Maximus and his captain all that often, but his love for the man wasn’t something that needed frequent touch ups. Berkeley wasn’t particularly brilliant, or particularly anything except kind, but that trait, Laurence decided, was what he needed most right now. 

He called the startled maid back and asked her for some paper. She led him to a sitting room. In the corner was a desk on which she had stacked enough paper to write a manifesto. Keeping it company was a pot of ink and two pens. He tried to put warmth into his thanks but was too distracted, and after several minutes of frantic scribbling realized there was no point to his efforts. He already knew what Berkeley would say. He could even hear the words in his head. _“If men were mind readers, mouths would just be for eating. If you want to know what he thinks of all this, then go and ask him. Lord knows the handsome bugger likes talking to you.”_

So he put down his paper and forced himself to sit on a nearby sofa. He would plan what he wanted to say, and he would say it. He always got into the most trouble when he tried to censor himself or hide things from his friends. However, the resolve to act was as far as he got. Before he could plan anything more specific the strains of the day caught up with him. Exhausted in body and mind, his eyes closed and he fell asleep. 

He woke to a soft pair of lips. Tharkay. It could only be Tharkay. Not because no one else would dare try to kiss him, but because he would always recognize his nestmate. It wasn’t the exact anatomy of his lips, or the gentle but thorough way his partner had of kissing him, but because of his own reaction, the way every part of himself recognized and responded to the man he loved. He would later blame his reaction on his still semi-conscious state. He forgot he was on a couch in Jane’s sitting room. He forgot he was anywhere but with Tharkay as he pulled the man atop him and kissed him with the kind of fervent intent that precedes lovemaking. Their hips found each other, and Laurence gloried in the contact. He pressed Tharkay to him and was straining still closer when his lover’s laughter exploded against his lips. 

“This is one of the more unusual reactions to fatherhood I’ve seen, but I can’t pretend to be an expert on the matter.”

As Tharkay pulled up and away, Laurence was left to blink himself the rest of the way awake. He scrambled to sit up as the realization of where he was and what had transpired finally hit him. “Apple. Where is she?”

“Asleep. Takes after her father, I suppose.”

“ _One_ of her fathers,” Laurence corrected. He was already looking around, trying to decide whether anyone could have seen him debauching his partner. He knew Jane’s staff were discreet, but he was horrified at the thought that he might have betrayed the trust of a man who valued his privacy over all things.

“We’ve found someone,” Tharkay said.

Laurence, who was still trying to cool his mind and body, didn’t automatically make the right connections with the words. “What?”

“A wet nurse. Granby plucked her right off the street. Saw her leaking through her dress and asked if she had milk to spare. Soon after she hit him, he offered her the job.”

Laurence's laugh came out as a bark. “A real way with women, our John has.”

“Her name is Laila. She’s out back being interviewed by the dragons. She’s quite as fascinated with them as they are with her.”

“She’s not afraid?”

“Afraid? No. That was Granby. He feared she would steal Izkierka’s heart. You know how much that dragon loves a captive audience.”

“And is this Laila...you find her a good match for us?”

Tharkay pretended not to understand. “She’s in excellent health. Of sound mind and body, and she’s hardly squeamish.”

Tharkay had been trying to train him out of his prudish and delicate nature. And while Laurence appreciated the effort, he sometimes wished his partner wasn’t _quite_ so adept at it. “You know what I mean. Will she go around town telling anyone who'll listen about the house full of great sinning inverts?”

Tharkay’s smile made the efforts in transparency worth it. “Granby was all for keeping you in ignorance. He was looking forward to seeing how you would panic if he leaned over to kiss Augustine in her presence. Unfortunately, my capacity to tease is a lot smaller than his. She already knows, and she doesn’t care. Quite likes it, in fact. Her previous employer liked to grab her bottom when the Mrs. wasn’t around. Granby had fun warning her that you retained a taste for women, but I made it clear you only fondle the posteriors of the elderly.”

“I’m telling Jane you said that.”

“Go ahead. She likes me more than she does you.”

It was probably true. Delivering the baby had inevitably raised him in her already high estimation. Laurence kissed him, something Tharkay wasn’t expecting, (and was flustered by despite his efforts to hide it). Laurence thrilled in throwing his partner off. It was something he’d never grow tired of.

“Come and meet her,” Tharkay said, but Laurence wanted to see Apple first. They found her in the kitchen, cradled in Little’s arms. The captain wore an expression of unblinking wonder as he stared into the tiny (still red) sleeping bundle. He started guiltily when they entered. Laurence didn’t miss the way the man’s arms tightened around the baby. For a moment it angered him. Apple was _his_ daughter. _His_ responsibility. But the draconian thought chagrined him. He’d been the one to recruit this pair. And though Little had recently said things he didn’t want to hear, he couldn't fail to recognize that the man was one of the best he knew, and he was likely to owe him a great deal as the days wore on.

“You don’t plan on giving anyone else a turn, do you?” Tharkay said. Laurence had been surprised the first time he heard his partner using that dry teasing with anyone other than himself. He’d thought he’d had a monopoly on it, but Little was a precious friend to Tharkay, and though Laurence didn’t quite understand it, he had learned from his time with Jane that monopolizing another person was not only unromantic, but a terrible thing to inflict on a partner. Tharkay would never dream of resenting Laurence for Temeraire’s hold on his heart. He liked to think he could be just as generous. Sometimes he even succeeded.

Little offered up the bundle (though not, Laurence noted, without a signs of reluctance.) Tharkay took the child but gave Little’s hand a squeeze to soften the blow of parting. He held her for only a moment before pushing her into Laurence’s arms and that meant that for a minute or so Laurence could do nothing but look at her, marveling at the terrifying little creature, so small that any accident, any misfortune at all, could snuff out her life. He couldn’t help but compare her birth to the other in his life. Temeraire had come out of the shell talking in eloquent sentences and fully capable of defending himself from any and all who would wish him harm. The two were so different, and yet he felt equally as incapable in this situation as he had back then. Thinking of Temeraire recalled him to duty.

“And Temeraire? Has he seen her?”

He had yet to raise his eyes. He couldn’t. He was caught on her tiny hands, each with a tiny translucent nail that seemed part of her skin, like tiny iridescent scales, reminiscent of a dragon.

“Not yet,” Tharkay said. “We thought you would want to make the introduction.” 

Something about the sound of his voice made Laurence raise his head. He questioned his partner with his eyes, but Tharkay shook his head. “It’s nothing. Only evidence for what I always suspected.”

Something that mysterious begged interpretation. “What is it?”

Tharkay’s hand, only a shade or two darker than his (thanks to never ending rides atop Temeraire that had weathered Laurence’s skin beyond even his seafaring days). “You were always meant to be a father.”

Laurence was torn between looking at Tharkay, who wore such a tender expression in his eyes, and Apple, whose chest rose up and down at the rapid pace that belonged to small animals. He chose Tharkay. He remembered what Little had told him and realized he was right. It was this man, at his side, that he owed for every bit of happiness in his life. “I love you,” he said.

Tharkay flushed, the color most obvious in the paler skin of his throat where a cravat usually hid it from the sun. “Will,” he said, astonished, pleased, and embarrassed, feelings only exacerbated when Laurence leaned over the baby between them and kissed him. When Laurence pulled away his eyes caught Little’s, who gave him a barely perceptible nod. Feeling triumphant, Laurence bore the child outside and marched her down to the pavilion where all three dragons were gathered.

“Laurence!” Temeraire called. He had a sixth sense for his captain, always the first to notice, and delight in, his presence. “Laurence, are you well? And the egg?”

He didn’t speak. Not yet. He was fighting a lump in his throat. He went straight to Temeraire and put a hand to one of his toes. “Your daughter,” he told the dragon. “Come and greet her.”

Temeraire blinked. He had lowered his head as Laurence approached and now he carefully nudged Laurence with his nose. It seemed impossible for a creature as large as he to be so gentle. Apple opened her eyes when she felt the warm dragon breath on her face. 

“Oh,” Temeraire said, his voice unsteady. “She also has your eyes.”

Laurence, who did not know much about babies, still knew that an infant’s eye color was rarely permanent, but Temeraire sounded so awed by this simple magic that he hadn’t the heart to correct him. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else.

“See how well she focuses,” said a new voice. “No fear, of course. She’ll never have that. Not with the dragons in her blood.”

Laurence kept his hand on Temeraire as he turned his head. Laila was a tiny woman. More of a girl, really. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. She was leaning in close to look at the baby and reached out to cradle the top of her fuzzy head. Without introducing herself, she said, “Best start earning my keep, I suppose. Give her here.” And without further ado, she popped an arm out of her dress, tugged it down to free a breast, and pulled Apple in for her first meal. Laurence tried to instinctively slide off a jacket he wasn’t wearing to use for her modesty. Seeing the gesture, and the panic written on his face, she laughed. “You must be the prude I was warned about. Don’t worry. They don’t bite.”

Laurence knew his face must be flaming. The shit-eating grin Granby wore could leave no room for doubt. Still he stammered something to the effect of a greeting with his eyes trained solidly on the ground. The others were nowhere near as inhibited. Granby put his face within two inches of her breast in order to better see Apple’s attempt to latch on. “You won’t get anything out that way, darling. Timid. Like her father. Come on, Apple. There’s a girl.”

Laurence was horrified. In a dim corner in the back of his mind was the observation that his friend had, perhaps, spent too many years among dragons to communicate in a normal way. “John!” His eyes had jumped up to reprimand his friend and caught Laila trying to coax her nipple into Apple’s questing mouth. It was a fascinating process and the father in him didn’t want to look away.

“There. That’s it,” Laila said as Apple finally clamped down. “Don’t be shy. I need you to empty me out before I get any more comments about leakage from this one.”

Temeraire was also trying to get an eyeful. “But surely milk isn’t enough. What else do the little ones eat? Shall I catch her some fish? I ate a lot of fish in my first few weeks of life.”

Granby liked that. “Fish! Of course! Babies need at least forty pounds a day, otherwise they’ll never grow to a healthy size.”

Little took care of Laurence’s alarm by taking a handful of Granby’s hair and tilting his head back to give him a weighty look. “Ignore everything this one says, Temeraire. He’s going to be nothing but trouble this week.”

Granby gave him a toothy grin. “Only this week?”

Tharkay was still focused on Laila. “Does that hurt?”

Laila shook her head. “No, but when the little devils get teeth, the lord himself can’t protect me.” She bent close and pressed a kiss to Apple’s head. “But you and I are a long way off from that time yet.”

It had only been a minute or so, but Laurence found he was already getting used to the sight of her bare chest. Perhaps it was another thing the corps had changed, but he felt his own chest swelling with emotion as he took in the domestic scene. This woman was feeding his child, nourishing her. Did that make her family? Perhaps Temeraire’s terms would serve best here. She certainly already felt like crew.

Crew. If she was crew, then he had responsibilities. He brought his mind back around. “Right. Miss Laila, might I escort you back inside to rest your legs after your journey? Perhaps some refreshment?”

She waved that away. “And have the baby shut up inside on such a nice day? No. I’ll take a glass of water if you have it, and if one of you shall oblige me, I shall take a seat with one of you” she said, directly to the dragons. All three offered themselves at once, but Temeraire, as chief father dragon, won himself the honor of acting as her stool. She perched herself on one of his claws as if it _wasn’t_ a weapon that could rip out her innards as easily as he could tear open a letter. He decided he liked her. He liked her even more once she pronounced Apple “a fine eater” and “the brightest creature born this side of the century.”

Temeraire was anxious to take their daughter home. “She has to sleep. Sleep and eat. As much as she can. It’s so exhausting to be always hungry and growing. It’s tiresome just to remember.”

But Laurence didn’t want to go without first seeing Jane. She was napping when he went back upstairs, but Emily told him to go in anyway. “She’ll have nothing to do the next few days but sleep. Go on.” But when he went inside and saw how pale she was he did nothing but sit down in the chair beside her. He was so careful to make no noise, but some long ingrained instinct was at work inside of her, and she opened her eyes. “Will,” she said. “Do you like her?”

He found himself blinking away tears again (it was quite an emotional day) as he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “She’s perfect,” he said, voice still hoarse after clearing his throat. “But Jane you look--”

“Dreadful, I know. It’s always this way, Will. Childbearing is worse than battle. If you ever do this to a woman accidentally, I’ll shoot you in the knee.”

Her hand was knotted with veins. Familiar, but older. The delivery had aged her. He kissed it again. “And Tenzing would shoot me in the other.”

She smiled at the name and closed her eyes. “An excellent man. Did I ever tell you how much I like him? It’s really too bad he’s an invert or I should have had him for myself.”

Her jest was marred by a cough. Laurence rushed to fetch the glass on the table and sat her up to drink. She touched his wrist. “Do you know what you’re doing, Will? With them?”

He only knew what she was talking about because Little had already sensitized him to the topic. “I hope so.”

She shook her head. “Better to let them go now than change your mind about it all later.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “They already love her.”

“And you,” she added. “They love you too. Don’t let that hurt them. Because it hurts, Will, to lose you.” For a moment, regret for what might have been, for what he could have had, with Jane, choked him. His chest burned as he felt the lack of air. But then he remembered Tharkay. Beautiful, self-sacrificing Tharkay, and he knew that, painful as this felt, he had made the right choice. “Jane,” he said, perhaps an apology, but she silenced him.

“After all the effort I put into making that thing you’d better not let it languish.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t make himself stand. Her expression softened. “Do you love her?”

“More than anything,” he said.

She laughed and reminded him of Temeraire. “Almost anything,” he amended.

She kicked him out, exhausted even by their short conversation. He tucked the blanket up around her and smoothed her hair. All throughout his relationship with her people had ribbed him for being into older women. But he’d never thought of her as older--never until now. He finally realized just how dangerous it had been for her to carry the child. He should have realized how much she would hate it. In all her years she’d only born the one child despite her almost rabid love of Emily. That should have told him. Why had he done this to her? Why had he let her feel that she owed him this?

When he left the house again some of the awe had gone out of him. He felt more like he had after the war. He was glad that they had won, but what had been the cost? His mood must have showed because Tharkay put a hand on the small of his back. He forced a smile to his face, more for Temeraire’s sake than for Tharkay’s (who would see through it anyway). “You know the baby can’t ride home atop you, don’t you my dear?”

Temeraire _didn’t_ know and was quite put out by this revelation. Especially when he heard that she’d be sent home in a _carriage_ of all things. 

“Those bits of flotsam and tinder? Surely not, Laurence. She’d be much safer atop me. Much much safer.”

“But what if she should be jolted, my dear? She cannot even support her head. And think. The fast rushing air, the swooping up and downs. You wouldn’t wish her taking ill, would you?”

Granby broke the situation down further. “She’ll be useless for a year at least. Best put her aside as a liability for now.”

Temeraire couldn’t comprehend that. Laurence had tried explaining it to him over the past few months, but the dragon couldn’t see how any creature, however stupid, could go _years_ without the ability to feed itself. Even insects could move right out of the egg. He was quite appalled, worried their baby was brain dead, but Laila was quick to assure him that all babies were this brain dead. Some even more so, and they still turned out alright. 

“But surely _Laurence_ at least was a better baby than this?”

That made them all laugh.

Tharkay volunteered to fly back with Temeraire. Immortalis made Little go with Laurence to guard Apple (Which wasn’t a hard sell. Little was not to be separated from her. He didn’t bother to hide his worship and had asked for Apple the moment Laila was done feeding her.)

Temeraire wanted to bring the baby’s bassinet onto his pavilion. He didn’t see why Apple shouldn’t sleep with him. As the biggest dragon and the baby’s father, he was the best candidate to protect her. 

“But my dear, think of Miss Laila. She cannot be coming out here at all hours of the night to feed her.”

“Of course not. Laila will stay beside me the whole time. We can make her up a bed. She already told me she doesn’t mind.”

Granby rolled his eyes. “Listen here, you ridiculous creature. We’re not all sleeping outside until she’s grown just so you can feel like a papa. Laurence isn’t the captain from your infancy. He’ll get back pain from sleeping on the floor. And think of the insects. And the weather. And, though no one dragon has ever given a flying fig about this before, our _privacy_.”

It was Temeraire’s turn to roll his eyes. He’d recently acquired the trait and it terrified people when they saw it. “Please, let none of us pretend that you shouldn’t like to see each other mating. Why you ever insisted on separate bedrooms at all is beyond me.”

Granby turned as red as Izkierka’s scales and could do nothing besides sputter “You damn…creature!” (It was clear from his tone that _creature_ was a substitution for a word far more offensive.)

Tharkay’s voice was full of undisguised humor as he said, “Temeraire, I think you’ve finally decided the contest of rudeness that’s been running between you and Izkierka since she was hatched.”

The comment brought with it an unexpected reaction. Everyone looked round toward the red dragon who had remained uncommonly quiet since Laurence had woken from his impromptu nap, and who, even now, had no comment to make. Granby (still unrecovered, but willing to put himself forward for his dragon’s sake) pressed a hand to her side. “Are you well, my love?”

Usually when Izkierka was sulking she would snap something to the effect of “Of course I’m all right. I’m glorious, as I always am. Whyever wouldn’t I be?” Not this time. She just nodded her head. If there was anything she could have done that would have alarmed him further, he couldn’t think of it. His stomach plummeted into his intestines. There was no possible interpretation but this: she must be dying.

Little must have had the same thought because his arm went immediately around his lover’s waist as if he expected him to collapse at any moment. “Out with it,” he snapped, in that voice parents use when they’re fraught with worry. “What is it? What ails you?”

Izkierka seemed to shrink into herself, that is, if something the size of a house can be expected to shrink. “I’m not injured,” she said. “I promise.”

Granby’s face had lost all its embarrassment, and with it all of its color. “Izkierka,” he said, and his tone sent shivers down Laurence’s spine. For a moment he understood what Temeraire must have felt when he thought he would be put to death. Izkierka couldn’t fail to speak. Selfish, she might be, but her love for Granby was real, and though it might appear, at times, as though his comfort was secondary to hers, she really was quite distraught at the thought of causing him any pain.

“It’s nothing,” she said, “Really.” Her eyes darted over them. She didn’t want eavesdroppers for this, but nobody was going anywhere. Even Temeraire had picked up on the thread of panic that overlay everyone. Dragons didn’t usually think much could harm them. They’d treated the dragon plague as if it was a mere cold they would soon get over. But there was concern in his eyes, if only because he trusted Laurence not to worry over nothing.

“Izkierka,” Granby said again. There was no refusing it a second time. She broke.

“It’s only that, well, Temeraire will not wish to have another egg with me now that his captain has given him one. It may be a stupid lump, but he will like it more than anything I can give him.”

All the eyes moved to Temeraire who did a slow blink but did not move any other part of his body. Laurence could see the concern turn to flattery, worry to pleasure, as the dragon came to understand, as he never had before, what Laurence had long suspected. That all of Izkierka’s attempts to show off, her wheedling and bragging, were a strange method of misguided courtship meant to win Temeraire--always only Temeraire--for no other dragon had ever taken the least bit of her attention. And as this news broke over all of them, Laurence felt a deep stab of pity for Izkierka for having to reveal her feelings in such a way when things like this were so difficult for her, and in front of all of them too. Her captain would be witness to her rejection if Temeraire chose to refuse her, and that shame, for a creature like Izkierka, might be just as bad, if not worse, than the rejection itself. He cast desperate eyes on his dragon, begging him to be discreet. To be courteous. Because though everyone could make fun of his sense of honor all they liked, it was still an integral part of him, and he could not, would not, brook any rudeness toward a woman, even if that woman happened to be the second deadliest creature in Britain (second to only Temeraire himself). 

But his look was wasted, because his dragon wasn’t looking at him. Temeraire had his eyes on Izkierka. His ruff was up and perhaps a bit of the divine wind was in him because he seemed to be inflating, taking up the space that she had withdrawn from. 

“Certainly, we must have an egg,” Temeraire said, his voice resonating, impossible to ignore. “Apple will need a dragon companion, and you--you make beautiful eggs.”

Laurence was dumbfounded. His hand felt for Tharkay and found an arm, but otherwise he was helpless before the spectacle. Before his eyes Izkierka came alive again, twining her sinuous length, preening with the fresh knowledge, that, to Temeraire, she was the most desirable mate in the world. Because no dragon, not even those lovely and prized imperials, had managed to bear him an egg. None, but her, had been strong enough. 

“Our last was a failure. I won’t have any child of Granby’s subjected to a brat like that.”

Izkierka, very much a brat herself, failed to hear the irony in her words. But strangely, neither did Temeraire. “It was still a beautiful egg. Well formed, well born, perfect. But you’re right. Her personality was terrible. We can’t risk that again. We must give the egg to Laurence and Granby to educate before it hatches. Perhaps, now that the war is over, and the egg is exposed to more genteel pursuits, it’ll be more like the dragons I saw in china.”

Izkierka, her previous embarrassment forgotten, as if it had never happened, bumped her head against Granby’s chest and said, “You’ll teach the egg, right Granby? You must promise to stay beside it all while it incubates. You and Augustine and Laurence and Tharkay.”

“I...I’m sure I’ll do anything you ask,” Granby stammered. “But is this really what you want?”

She pawed at the ground. “So long as you promise not to love the egg more than me.”

“My dearest heart, you know better than to worry about such a thing.”

She did, but that didn’t mean reassurance wasn’t still a nice thing. And he gave it to her, readily. Soon she was back to her regular self, showing off and making excessive demands for of course Temeraire couldn’t hog the baby just because “Laurence put his seed in the egg.” After all, human babies also needed mothers, and she (and Laila) were the only women in the house.

“You?” blurted Little, “A mother?”

But his disbelief could no longer touch her. Assured now in both Temeraire’s and Granby’s regard, she was acting like the belle of the ball. She wanted to disregard their individual pavilions (her new one was only a few months old) and build a larger communal one big enough for a hoard of protective dragons to share, and, of course, Apple must sleep with them. Surely they could build a pavilion that protected the egg. Her captain could do anything, and they would all sleep together, and no one would bother about privacy because Temeraire was right, and, really, all human mating looked the same to her. When Little tried to put in a protest, she waved it off with a breezy, “I know, I know, men and women mate with different holes but really it’s very hard to tell what’s happening. In any case, Tharkay and Laurence don’t bother with holes at all so I don’t know what you’re complaining about. They just put their hands and mouths on each other and they do that around you two anyway so I don’t see why it has to be private just because there are fewer clothes involved.”

This statement brought so much horror to Granby that he did nothing but apologize for the next hour. He made so many apologies that Laurence had to finally tell him to shut up in the nicest way he could think of. When that didn’t work, Tharkay clapped a hand over the man’s mouth and threatened to kick him out of the house. Neither of their efforts did much, but Apple proved to be a useful distraction. She napped after her feeding, but she was soon awake again and everybody wanted to hold her, talk to her and touch her soft fuzzy head, but no one more than Little. Even Laurence’s feelings didn’t quite match Little’s naked worship. After a few hours of watching them together, Tharkay drew Laurence aside and demanded to know what was to be done.

“You can’t separate the two of them. He’s besotted.”

Besotted was too tame a word for what Little felt. Laurence figured his lover was using it as a euphemism for _obsessed_. He didn’t know what to say. He’d been in a mixed-up state of euphoria and despair all day. Euphoria because both the human and dragon parts of the family had one and all accepted Apple, and despair because he didn’t know what to do besides sacrifice his own time with her.

“So you think I should let her sleep in their room?”

“Good god, Will. Why is your initial reaction always in the realm of abnormal altruism? No. I’m saying the dragons are right. We all need to sleep together.”

Tharkay had this way of making everything that came out of his mouth sound right and obvious. Most of the time Laurence was taken in, but this time he balked. “What?”

Tharkay read the accusation in his eyes and laughed. “I’m not suggesting an orgy. I mean we need to sleep together, in one room, where Apple can have all of us. It will be awkward at first, particularly since Augustine is still hyper vigilant when it comes to you and John, but he’ll agree to it. I knew he wanted children, but I had no idea it was a desire bordering on mania. Even Granby is surprised by his fervor. We’ll need to be careful of his feelings. He doesn’t do well with vulnerability, and since the seed _is_ yours” (here he inserted a wry grin) “he’ll feel even worse. It’ll be up to you to assure him of how welcome he is.”

Laurence was still busy processing the beginning of the sentence, never mind the ending. “Sleep? Together?”

“I know. The bed is too small for four, and there isn’t room for two separate beds. We can either invest in a custom mattress or push two together. The main house has bigger rooms, but I really would prefer to stay in this one. It’s the first place that’s really felt like home to me.”

The confession was well placed. Tharkay was too intuitive to be unaware of Laurence’s roiling confusion, and so he brought them both back to a place Laurence knew--the two of them, together. Everything else could be made sense of so long as it was first put into that context. Laurence took his hands. “We could knock out the wall between the office and your old room. The space would be bigger--but perhaps that’s more of a permanent solution. I don’t want to be starting any new projects with Apple so small. After a lifetime of ships I’m accustomed to close quarters, but my love, sometimes I think even _I_ am too much of an invasion of your space. Will you truly be alright sharing it with three others?”

Tharkay pulled him close and pressed their faces together, his eyes closed, and those beautiful lashes casting shadows on the smooth expanse of his skin. Laurence would never, ever, grow complacent about Tharkay’s beauty. After nearly a year as lovers, and many more as intimate friends, he still grew flustered whenever Tharkay drew suddenly close. 

“It is _because_ you are always so preoccupied with my space that I am able to sacrifice it. No one has ever shown me as much consideration as you have. I don’t often acknowledge it, but I hope you know how much I treasure that regard.”

“Tenzing,” Laurence said, because he was too surprised to say anything else. The emotions of the day were high indeed if his partner was spilling over like this. Tharkay kissed him. It was still rare for him to initiate things, and when it happened, like now, his kisses still brushed the border of chaste, but Laurence treasured those kisses above any of the others, because Tharkay never risked any expression that might not be reciprocated, and it meant he knew (as did everyone else) that Laurence loved him.

“We’d best go and tell them,” Tharkay said once he’d pulled away. “Maybe if he knows there’s no imminent separation, Augustine will let you pry his fingers free to give her a bath.”

But Laurence didn’t let Tharkay go away. Not yet. He pushed him down onto the edge of the bed and knelt between his legs. If everyone was going to start sharing a room he would begin by reminding Tharkay that fatherhood was _not_ going to change how he thought about him. Once Tharkay had silently but urgently spent himself, Laurence wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, grinned like a petty criminal, and went to share the news. Granby greeted it with laughter, but Little didn’t react much at all. He went very still and looked down at Apple (he still had her in his arms). He didn’t lift his head to look at any of them for close to an hour and when he finally did he came to Laurence and said, “I know my behavior is inexcusable. This generosity in the face of my selfishness is astounding. Thank you.”

Laurence was getting tired of not knowing what to say. He was used to it happening, but not usually so many times in the span of a single day. He had a feeling he looked stupid too, gaping in an empty-headed way. He used to think he was a man of composure. That was before the dragons...and becoming an invert. Thankfully his duty recalled him to himself before an embarrassingly long time could pass. “My dear man,” he said, “Of all things, you need never apologize for loving our daughter.”

Little looked back down in Apple’s face. She was still a bit red. Laila said some babies were like that for a few days. Izkierka didn’t see what the problem was. Red, she proclaimed, was the most glorious color of all.

“I’m sorry,” Little said, and he was no longer talking about Apple. “I’m trying. I’m really...I don’t want to hate you, Laurence.”

Granby’s eyebrows went up into his hair. “Hate?” He exclaimed. “Who ever said anything about hate?”

Laurence shot him a look that was ignored.

“Augustine, surely you’re not still--for Christ’s sake, if you won’t trust me, at least don’t do Laurence the dishonor of suspecting _him_. I’m sure he’s never so much as littered a scrap of paper in his life, never mind the kind of out-and-out villainy you’re accusing him of.”

But Little showed little shame in being rebuked. He lifted his head and looked his partner directly in the face. “I’ll kill him if he ever hurts you.”

It was the utter calm, the reasonableness in the statement that chilled Laurence’s blood. He knew, without ever having seen a trace of violence in the man, that Little was capable of it. He had heard Temeraire’s theories on the effects of dragons on their human partners, and he quite agreed with them. People in the corps tended to think of dragons as the ones influenced, brought in to follow laws that defied their instincts, but he had never really believed that people convinced dragons into changes one way or another. Dragons did what they did for reasons they already had in themselves. It was men who were crafted by their dragons. Dragons had a different sense of justice than men did, and Laurence was no longer horrified as he had been. He had seen dragons maul others to get at their captains, and he understood it, had felt that desperate upwelling of violence himself in moments when Temeraire’s life was threatened. He looked at Little and felt, in that moment, that they finally understood each other. The man didn’t hate him, nor did he resent him, really. He was just afraid--afraid as they all were, after the war. It was the fear of hurt, more than death, that spiked that panic. None of them had ever felt death, so though they had seen it, there was still a certain impossible distance in the concept that kept them from fearing it as much as they did the loss of hurt. All of them had been hurt. Granby was missing a hand. Temeraire and Laurence both had scars from the war that would never fade. And Little...his relationship with Granby had started during the war. Perhaps he feared that now, in peacetime, he would no longer be the man his partner needed. That Granby had options now. It was stupid, because Granby’s eyes lit up not only when Little entered a room, but even when his name was mentioned in casual conversation. It was hard to believe that a man who could lose his heart to a brat like Izkierka could be easily swayed in his attachments. And yet. Little’s fears weren’t completely ridiculous. In the past year Laurence had come to understand just how important he was to Granby. He had done away with modesty and linear thinking, turned naked eyes to the topic, and found that his friend truly did love him just as much as Little feared. His own reaction to that knowledge surprised him. He’d felt no flattery or revulsion. He’d felt nothing much different at all. Because he’d _known_ of his feelings. He must have known for years, because he was so comfortable with the idea that he didn’t lose much more thought to it. He found he treasured Granby’s regard. It seemed impossibly fortuitous that he could win the hearts of two such great men, but somehow, bumbling as he was in the ways of romance, he had managed it (though, he knew, through no deliberate action of his own.) He wasn’t distressed by his friend’s feelings because he didn’t think the man felt compelled to act on them. Being around Laurence didn’t cause him pain. Not much, anyway. Not enough to threaten the wonderful family they had built together. And perhaps it was selfish, but he didn’t wish Granby’s feelings to fade. Not even if it brought him a measure of relief. Because as long as he had Granby’s love, the man couldn’t be compelled to leave him.

“If I ever do hurt him, Augustine, I’ll be only too glad to subject myself to whatever punishment you mete out. You would have to be quick about it though. Tenzing reacts faster than anyone I know, and I can’t imagine he’d let me off the hook if I hurt either of you.”

Tharkay ran a hand through his hair. He did that sometimes when he was feeling exasperated. Laurence thought he looked unfairly good with rumpled hair.

“If you’re both done with your posturing, I’d like to borrow John.”

That distracted them all. Though Tharkay and Granby were perfectly cordial to each other, it was strange to see him single him out like this. But Tharkay wasn’t done. With a casual gesture that belied its utter novelty, Tharkay slid his arm around Granby’s waist and pulled him out of the room with a breezy, “I’ve need of your dexterity, and we know, in all the house, that you’ve the most talented hands.”

Laurence looked to Little for guidance, but the captain wore a look of dumbfounded befuddlement. “Is he…what exactly is he trying to show us?” 

Little shrugged. Apple squirmed. She was swaddled up the way the dragons liked, with nothing but her face showing. They approved of keeping her warm. They still thought of her as an egg (despite her being free of Jane’s body). It seemed they would treat her as one until she was capable of doing things for herself. 

Laurence decided to drop the subject. “Come,” he said. “We can use the basin in the sink to bathe her. I’ll put the kettle on.”

Little was only too happy to obey. He stripped off his shirt and all but climbed into the sink with her. He insisted on cradling her close all the while and Laurence had to dump water over him to get to her. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Want me to do your hair while I’m at it?” Laurence asked, mostly joking, and laughed when Little gave him a thoughtful look. The man cradled Apple against his chest as he bent over the sink. Laurence was surprised at the intimacy of hair washing. He had never done this for anyone before, and now he was washing his daughter and his friend at the same time. Little’s hair was nice. Not as shiny as Tharkay’s but so thick it defied nature. “You could lose half of this and still have more than I do,” he noted.

“John prefers the color of yours.”

“How about I drown you in the sink and then we can ask John who he prefers.” But he was scrubbing at Little’s scalp so gently there could be no sting to the words.

Little continued to hold Apple, and showed no signs of ever wanting to put her down, so Laurence toweled his hair dry and helped Apple into a fresh set of clothes with Little’s arms providing a canopy of sorts. 

“Do you plan to hold her until she comes of age?” he teased.

“Why stop then?” Little said, but his face grew more serious. “I’ll hold her for as long as you give me leave, but say the word and I'll release her. I would not take her hostage.”

Laurence pulled Little’s hair back with a bit of leather. It wasn’t quite long enough so bits came down to frame his face. “You look good like this. Why not grow it? I think John would like it.”

To his surprise, a hint of pink rose up in Little’s cheeks. “I didn’t want to seem like I was copying you.”

Laurence blinked, and then he laughed. “Shall I cut mine short then?”

“Of course not. Tenzing would throttle me.”

“I doubt it. Sometimes I think he is fonder of you than he is me.”

“You mock me.”

Laurence never mocked anyone. Teased, perhaps, but only rarely, and only with those he loved best. He bristled at the accusation. “Mock Tenzing’s dearest friend?”

The color in Little’s cheeks deepened. “He doesn’t...I am nothing to him next to you.”

Laurence felt himself relent. He had never considered Little a particularly handsome man, but with his hair back and the blush, he was certainly passable, maybe even pretty. His body was certainly nothing to dismiss. Like most military men, he had a muscled frame, but unlike some military men, he didn’t let it go to fat once off active duty. Laurence found his eyes drawing the veins of his forearms and stopped when he realized what he was doing. “It isn’t a contest. Shall we call him in here and ask what he thinks of you? I’m sure the answer will prove flattering.”

Little’s cheeks crossed the line from pink to red. His ears were tinged with it too. “Pray do not. John would laugh himself into a fit.”

Laurence touched Little’s cheek with the back of his hand. He couldn’t say why he did. It was a moment’s impulse (he was learning not to ignore those). “You don’t know how much it comforts me to know that were something to happen to me, he would be well cared for. I did not always treat Tenzing as he deserves. Even now I know I fail, but at least I know he has you to rely on when I'm being particularly dim witted.”

He expected Little to shrug out from beneath his hand. He wasn’t one for touch. Usually only Granby and Tharkay had that privilege. But he didn’t move except to close his eyes, as if in pain. “If you knew how I felt you would not be so kind. I’m a hypocrite and a thief. You shouldn’t...you must not…” He swore and ground to a halt. Laurence felt some alarm, but chose not to show it. He tucked a bit of hair behind Little’s ear and drew back. “I know what I see when Tenzing looks at you. His judgment is impeccable. If he trusts you, what reason have I to do any differently?”

But far from reassuring, the words only seemed to increase Little’s pain. He wanted to question it, find its source, but the man didn’t want to share. “Can you fetch the nurse?” he asked. “I think she’s hungry again.”

Laurence did as he was asked, but he continued to mull over Little’s words long after they were spoken. Granby wrestled Apple free and pulled Little to the kitchen. 

“Lest you forget what your primary duties are around here,” Tharkay said with a wry smile as Little pulled pans free from the cupboards.

Granby folded his arms over his chest. “If he wanted to have a life free of my demands, he never should have started feeding me. It’s his fault I’m an addict.”

Laurence hid his smile and bent to kiss the fuzz on Apple’s head. He was glad of Izkierka’s influence. She had taught her captain some of her impetuity, and it meant he got to hold his daughter again. 

“Besides,” Granby continued, “We all know I _really_ keep him around for an organ that has nothing to do with his cooking.”

“You’re wicked,” Little said, but he made no complaint when Granby made him set aside the onion he was dicing to kiss him.

“Not to mention shameless,” Tharkay said. “If that’s the kind of talk you’ll subject your daughter to.”

“Oh she won’t understand for ages yet,” Granby said.

But the words set thoughts rolling in Laurence’s head. What would happen as his daughter grew? She would enter society, make friends and connections--or so he hoped. Because how would people react to her coming from a household of men? Even if they were all careful enough to avoid outright accusations of inversion, people would still suspect it, some would know it, and all might judge her for it. He’d had these thoughts before, but always Tharkay’s quiet reasoning and Granby’s open bluster had been enough to put him at ease. But now Apple was real, and her future felt immediate. It didn’t feel like enough to “play things by ear.” He needed absolute assurance. He needed to make sure his daughter would not be scorned for the behavior of her fathers.

With only a nod to Tharkay, he left the kitchen and ducked out to Temeraire. Despite all the dragon’s talk about building a larger one, Temeraire’s pavillion had plenty of room to fit all three dragons. Immortalis was coiled atop Izkierka (both were napping, having gone hunting together) but Temeraire was bent over his sand table, scratching away. It was difficult to identify a dragon by its limited facial expressions, but it was clear from his body language that he was agitated. 

“My dear, are you well?” Laurence asked, putting aside his own troubles in the face of his dragon’s.

Temeraire dashed his scratchings away with an uncharacteristically violent snap of his tail. With even more care than usual, he scooped up his captain (and their daughter) and brought him up close to his face. Laurence rubbed at Temeraire’s nose He had to use all of his strength to massage in a way that was soothing through the protective armor of his scales. “It’s useless, Laurence. The egg is sure to be as awful as the last one. I don’t know what I was thinking, giving Izkierka hope. She expects us to mate tonight, but I don’t know if I can go through with it. Oh Laurence, how shall I face you when the dragon isn’t worthy of your egg? I cannot bear to disappoint you. Not again. Not after all the trouble I’ve caused.”

“Trouble? My dearest heart, when have you ever been anything but the delight of my life?”

“Oh no. Don’t start with your generosity now. It will only torment me further. I lost you your ship, your fortune, and your future wife within my first week of life and it only grew worse from there. I forced you to take the dragon cure and nearly lost you your life. I have always been threatening your life. Especially when we were in Australia when there was no excuse of serving the country. And I don’t want to think of that terrible time when I might have lost you forever inside your own mind if not for Tharkay who brought your memories back. I have always wanted, since then, to do some great good, something that would mark you permanently in your mind and give you recompense for all you have sacrificed. But once again I will be exchanging your kindness for ingratitude. And when you see how awful the dragon is you will know that the first was no accident and that I am incapable of producing good progeny because my seed is rotten.”

“Temeraire!” Laurence had to shift Apple to one arm so he could hug his dragon’s face with the other. “No, no, that is wrong. All of it. You have often, many times over more than made up for any inconvenience of being partnered to a dragon in England. Were we in China you would see how great of an honor it was for you to choose me, and you might know your own worth. My dear, has it never occured to you to resent me for keeping you from your birthplace? From your family? And from all the recognition you would receive there? How can you think of a few thousand pounds of mine in comparison to the great treasure you would have been sure to receive there? And I have told you a dozen times over that I would have regretted it all my days if I had not taken the cure to the dragons. You saved me, Temeraire. You saved me from being a scoundrel that day. And as to my amnesia in Japan, I cannot say why the sight of you didn’t restore you to my head and heart. I can only say it was because you were introduced back to me when the trauma was still so recent. My memories were already beginning to return when I saw Tharkay. It's not because he's dearer to me than you are, and I can say now, with certainty, that between the two of you it was only a matter of time before my memories returned. Darling creature, it is _my_ neglect that has allowed you to think so of yourself. If I was praising you and appreciating you the way you deserved you would know, you would not fail to recognize how vastly important--how integral--you are to my happiness. I’m bad with words and with expressing my feelings, as you know. I am no poet as you are, Temeraire--if you only knew how much I treasure…” He broke off, frustrated, knowing it was a wash, but another voice finished it for him.

“You complete him as he does you, Temeraire,” Tharkay said in a voice barely loud enough to make it to their ears. “I never imagined I could weasel my way into Will’s heart. I thought it belonged to you in its entirety.”

The stalks on Temeraire’s head trembled with the combination of all this praise. He did not weep. Laurence had never seen a dragon cry. Perhaps they could not. But he shook the way one did with sobs and tongued Laurence’s face over and over to taste the truth in his words and assure himself of his partner’s regard. “I love you,” Laurence whispered. Every time those words were easier to say. “And I will love your egg, as will Apple, if you choose to have it, because I would never push you for more than you have already given me. Cannot you see how full you have made my life? Without you I would be saddled with a family I didn’t truly care for and a life comprised of little more than duty. It was you who brought me Tharkay, you who brought me Granby, Jane, and all the dragons. How will I ever repay _you_ for all you have done, that is what you should be asking yourself.”

But Temeraire would never ask it of himself and knowing it only made Laurence love him all the more. He pressed his face to his dragon’s nose and breathed in the smell of him, more familiar now than anyone else’s. Even with his eyes closed and his hands bound he would know his dragon from any other.

“What did you come out to tell me?” Temeraire asked when he was calm again.

“Nothing, my dear.” It was hardly the time to bring up his worries, but Tharkay (being Tharkay) wouldn’t let him bury anything.

“He is worried, as he was before, about how the world will react to his daughter, something Apple herself will never worry about because with the most powerful dragons in the world doting on her she is sure to think more highly of herself than Napoleon.”

Laurence was amazed. “How do you do that?”

“Read your mind? It’s not like you make it difficult. Now let me hold my daughter. Augustine really is a terrible monopolizer. I shall have to set Granby on him more often.”

“That was your doing?”

“Of course. Did you really think he would interrupt Augustine’s flowering fatherhood because he wanted a sandwich?”

Laurence made Temeraire fetch the man up so he could kiss him. “You’re a marvel. Truly. I’ll never know anyone else like you.”

“If I agree, will you come back inside? Granby’s liable to finish everything on his own and you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

Laurence kissed him again. It seemed preposterous now that he had ever been scared of kissing the man. It was one of his favorite activities. Certainly in the top three. Tied with the feeling of a deliberate free fall atop Temeraire. It was hard to beat plunging toward the earth atop a twenty ton war machine that would kill anyone for you. 

Dinner was uneventful. Granby entertained them with his imitation of Laurence’s panic during Jane’s labor which led to them all imitating Granby puking into whatever was nearest them. Tharkay’s impression was the best. Even Granby said so. Laila fed Apple while they ate, and nobody cared that she technically had her tits out at the table. Granby even had questions. A lot of questions. “What does that feel like?” led to Laila pulling open his shirt and pushing Apple up to his chest. She wouldn’t latch on, but it made Granby laugh. He only wanted Little to try. “His nipples are so sensitive.” He got swatted in the head for that one. But then it was bedtime and that was awkward. 

Tharkay bathed, as he always did. Laurence had no idea how the man had gone so many nights without bathing when they’d been traveling around the world together. Perhaps he could handle the stress of dirt when the environment necessitated it, but at home he acted like a night without a bath was one tiny step away from the fall of civilization. Strangely enough, he was only obsessive over his own hygeine. In fact, he kind of liked it when Laurence was dirty. Once when he was out chopping wood, Tharkay had pushed him down to the ground, and had his way with him right there in the grass. Thinking about that moment was dangerous though, especially when it was necessary to behave. 

He learned a few things while getting ready for bed. One was Granby’s fear of spiders. The other was Little’s fear of pajamas. Well, fear was too strong of a word, but he didn’t like them. The most anyone could get him to wear was a pair of cotton shorts and even those, according to Granby, he was liable to kick off in the middle of the night. 

“I remember one night on campaign when I went to the latrines and found him returning to camp with nothing but a blanket over his shoulders. First time I ever saw his cock. It made me determined to see it again.”

Little shoved a pillow into his face. “Was that water in your glass, or something stronger? You’re filthy today.”

Granby tossed the pillow back at him. “ _You’re_ the one who gets all free-fingered when he’s drunk.”

“If you two need us to leave for a while, we can,” Tharkay said with a pointed look. But Little was already reaching for Apple again. Granby pretended to be offended. “Look at that. A few hours and I’m already replaced. What does she have that I don’t? I can also make my skin red if I hold my breath long enough.”

Tharkay sat down on the bed beside Little and did something Laurence had never seen. He put his head on Little’s shoulder. He was so surprised he just stood there, staring. He wasn’t the only one taken aback. Little went so stiff he might have been carved from wood. Granby laughed. “Great. Now I’m not even second place. Laurence, you better not be getting any ideas. I don’t think I could stand to be fourth. Or rather, fifth, if we count Immortalis, which, I suppose, we always should.”

Laurence, unsure of what to say or do, decided to ready himself for bed, and began to undress. That didn’t make things better. Granby put his fingers in his mouth and whistled at him when he dropped his pants. Tharkay gave him a glare, intimidating despite its lack of seriousness. “You want to drop down to sixth?”

Laurence pulled on a night shirt, climbed up onto the bed, and pulled Tharkay down. He didn’t try to do anything, but he wanted him close. He’d always been wary of change, even good change. It was a trait he’d been born with and even years of Temeraire’s impulsivity had yet to put a sizable dent in it. Tharkay seemed to understand and said nothing, choosing only to curl a bit of his hair in his fingers. Laurence pulled him a little closer. He was embarrassed to look up. Granby and Little had seen him and Tharkay touching before (and who could forget that fateful scene in the kitchen that Granby had walked in on) but it seemed different in the bed. More intimate. What he and Tharkay had together seemed so private. Yes, Temeraire often looked in on them while they were still twined together, but that was different, wasn’t it? Perhaps not. It might only be something he’d grown accustomed to, and if that was the case, wouldn’t he grow used to this as well? He didn’t know. It didn’t seem possible. And then Granby flopped down beside Tharkay and asked how he kept his hair so smooth if he was always washing it and it was so _normal_ that it made things seem even stranger.

He looked at the two of them--Tharkay and Granby--lying next to each other and he found himself blinking _a lot_ . A great swelling of emotion pushed at the confines of his chest and he knew, strange or not, that this was _right_. And that there was no going back to the way things were before. Little elbowed Granby out of the way and lay down in the center and set Apple down on the bed. He motioned to Laurence until he was lying down on the other side of Apple.

She was so sweet, sleeping. He didn’t know how to look away from her. He pulled her into his chest and breathed her smell deep, deep until he knew it was locked away inside him for good. 

“You’re not the man I met,” Granby said.

Laurence looked up and found soft eyes resting on him. Dangerous eyes. Granby was looking at him the way he did at Little. And if he saw it, everyone else would. Well, it was like Tharkay said. There was no use hiding things like this. Carefully, he pushed Apple into Little’s arms, reached over him, and took Granby’s hand. It was rough, like his own. Little and Tharkay were the ones who obsessively moisturized.

“And you were hardly a man when I first met you.”

Granby smiled. He still resembled the youngster he’d met in the covert that day, but in the way an old photograph bears a resemblance. His face had grown stronger with sharper lines in the jaw and his body had filled out considerably. Still holding Granby’s hand, he pressed them up under the edge of his shirt, over the hard lines of his stomach. Granby’s breath caught. Satisfaction singed somewhere in Laurence. He drew the hands up over the planes of Granby’s chest. “You know, I don’t think even Temeraire was as upset to lose you to Izkierka as I was.”

Granby’s eyes widened. It made him look younger, more like the boy he’d been once. “But you were so...so…”

“Congratulatory? Of course. I had to be. You deserved to be a captain. Deserved it more than I did. But it took me a long time to be happy about the change. The space beside me up near Temeraire’s head felt empty without you. Sometimes, it still does.”

Granby ducked his head. Laurence thought it was embarrassment, but then, with a startled unraveling, he realized the man was blinking back tears.

“Kiss him,” Little said.

It was only his surprise that drew his gaze away from Granby. “What?”

“If you’re going to say things like that, at least take responsibility for the consequences. Kiss him.”

Laurence looked to Tharkay for help, but there was nothing much to be found there. Little took him by the chin and firmly faced him back toward Granby. Laurence shut off his brain, (It was so rarely useful at times like this) cupped Granby’s face in his hands and kissed him.

It was so different from Tharkay. Granby trembled beneath him, and the skin under his hands burned with heat. When Laurence drew back he could feel Granby’s breath against his lips. He was still leaning over Little. It should have been awkward. But it wasn’t. “Sleep well, John,” he said.

Granby said nothing. His eyes were shut tight. Laurence lay down and pulled Tharkay into the envelope of his body. He wouldn’t find out what the man thought about it all until tomorrow. Until then there was no sense in worrying about it. It had been a long day--the first with his daughter. He should have been exhausted. Instead his body felt good, like a tool used for its purpose. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He woke with his arm thrown over Granby. Apple, Tharkay, and Little were gone, but he knew better than to panic. He pulled Granby closer. The man was like a furnace, a nice addition to a cold morning. When he pressed a kiss to his temple, Granby stirred, tightened his hold, and then tried to shrink back when his consciousness came around. Laurence didn’t let him. “Do you suppose they have breakfast waiting for us downstairs or will they be too heavily engrossed in each other to have given us a thought?”

Granby, still shy, pressed his face into Laurence’s shoulder. “Is this really okay? Tharkay doesn’t mind?”

“Tenzing adores you. Besides, he wouldn’t want me to be cold.”

They found the others at the table, nursing mugs of tea and talking in quiet voices. Apple was in the chair by the stove, being fed by Laila. Granby went right to Little, sat down in his lap and kissed him with the kind of enthusiasm that defied the early hour. Little sloshed some tea setting his mug hurriedly down. “John--”

But Granby didn’t let him get another word in. He had fistfuls of Little’s shirt and was close to breaking his neck with the way he was bearing down on him. Tharkay chuckled. “I told you he would be appreciative.”

Granby only let go of his partner when Tharkay pointed out the bacon and eggs on the stove, but even then he broke away only to get it, and then came back to sprawl in Little’s lap, pan in hand. 

“You can at least use a plate,” Little grumbled. “The war has turned you into a savage.”

Granby shook his head, mouth full to bursting. “Born like this,” he forced out after a huge swallow. “And you love it.”

“I suppose I must. I don’t know how I’d tolerate it otherwise.”

Granby gave him a greasy bacon kiss and went to fetch the kettle. Laurence slipped in beside tharkay and pressed a discreet kiss to his neck. “How are the dragons?”

“Temeraire is complaining of a stiff neck from craning in to check up on ‘the egg’ all night, but Izkierka called him a liar outright as he was with her a ways off until dawn.”

“Then they went through with it? The mating?”

“Yes, Christ save us all. Izkierka is going to be insufferable until the thing is laid.”

Granby grinned. “That’s my girl.”

“An attention hog,” Little said. “Like you.” Granby kissed him again.


	3. Follow the Screams

Laurence was content. At least, he thought he was. It didn’t last long. Some time into the third day, Apple began to whine. The whining turned into squirming and the squirming turned into wailing, and by the third week, all of them had forgotten the complacent little ball of warmth she’d been at first and knew only the screaming demon she was fast becoming.

“What on earth is the matter?” cried Granby, who had broken first. He couldn’t understand how a creature so doted on could become so miserable. Laurence had been the second to break. He waited to go through every solution he and everyone he knew could think of, but then panic had set in. Even Tharkay was on edge, snapping at anyone who made the smallest noise (not that noise really mattered in the wake of Apple’s screams). The dragons all had their interpretations. Temeraire thought she was frustrated because no one could interpret what she was trying to say. Izkierka thought she was screaming to intimidate others. “She’s so small. She needs a way to make up for it.” Immortalis just thought she was obnoxious. He resented the creature for wholly monopolizing his captain. Laurence couldn’t blame him. No one had suspected that Little’s life would change the most with the baby. And it was only Little that could handle the screaming seemingly without effect. He never put Apple down anymore. When he needed to use the washroom he would push the child into Laurence’s hands, but everything else he simply did one-handed. No one complained. Even Laurence, who would die for his daughter, could not hide his relief when Little took her into his arms once again. He didn’t know how to whether the screams. The doctors called it colic. “Hopefully it will pass soon,” they said. They made suggestions, but none of them worked. Only Little seemed to have the magic answers. He would carry Apple in ways that eased the screaming (though never completely stifled it) and he would softly speak to Apple, a constant wave of sound, sometimes inaudible over her wails, as he massaged her stomach. She would sleep in fits and starts. During those times, Laurence would find an exhausted Little conked out wherever he happened to be. Once he even found him leaning against a wall, still standing, fast asleep. Nights were bad for Apple, but Little took her outside and walked back and forth, singing to her softly, so his family could sleep. Laurence felt sick with guilt over how little the man was helping, but there wasn’t much to be done. Apple preferred Little over all others. She was calmest with him, and though he or one of the others would insist on taking her for a few hours at a time so he could nap or eat a meal in peace, Little rarely took them up on the offers. He couldn’t stomach the idea of her suffering just to bring himself a bit of comfort. So he held her, and he held her, and he held her.

“God bless him,” Laurence murmured for the tenth time that day. He would never ever resent Little for as long as he lived, no matter what he might do in the future.

Little was outside. They could still hear Apple’s sniffling wail. Izkierka had laid her egg, but she insisted that Apple be kept away until the sickness passed. She didn’t want the egg feeling anxiety when there was nothing it could do from inside the shell. Apple was six weeks old now. The doctors said that was when Colic typically peaked and that hopefully it would fade in a month or so. Laurence thought another month might kill Little. It would certainly turn him into an old man.

Granby was standing by the window, watching Little from a distance. He did that a lot these days. Gone were his smiles, his jokes. It felt wrong to see him acting this way. Even during the war, he had rarely been so agitated (except for the moment he thought he would be forced to marry a woman, and perhaps not even then). Laurence went to him and put a hand to the small of his back. “Come. Let me make you something to eat.”

Granby’s voracious appetite had dwindled to nothing. He picked at his food, only eating when Little would push a plate his way and stare at him until it was clean. But with Apple to care for, Little could only insist so much. The weight was falling off of Granby. His clothes were loose and his face had grown thin. It was a heartbreaking transformation. Laurence tried to push everyone to eat, forcing down more food than he wanted himself to set an example. He’d tried guilting Granby with Izkierka, who was sick with worry over the state of her captain, but it did nothing but bring the misery into Granby’s face even more.

Granby shook his head, but Laurence pulled him to the table anyway, pretending not to notice. He had prepared Granby’s favorites. He'd been watching Little as closely as possible, trying to imitate his style of cooking to make it more palatable, but it made no difference.

“Don’t, Laurence. It just turns to ash in my mouth.”

But Laurence wouldn’t desist. He was so tired of seeing the people he loved worn thin. He and Tharkay had had an argument that morning over what to do. Tharkay wanted to take Apple to more London doctors. Laurence insisted the journey would only make her miserable and not do a lick of good, and Tharkay had banged out of the house, probably off to offer exorbitant amounts of money to pretentious doctors to get them to make a country house call. Laurence knelt at Granby’s knee and took his hand. “Eat, please. For me.”

Granby said nothing.

“For Augustine, then. You know he hates to see you like this.”

“He doesn’t see me at all.”

“That’s not true. You’ve always been his source of strength. Now eat. If he sees you giving up he’ll finally break and then where the hell will we be?”

Granby shook his head again, but even that simple gesture had no energy. “No. He’ll keep right on going, even if the baby kills him. Nothing else matters to him anymore.”

Laurence grabbed his face and tugged it down to meet his eyes. “You take that back. The Granby I know would never have said such a thing.”

But Granby only shrugged. Helplessness clawed its way up Laurence’s chest. He wished he hadn’t chased off Tharkay. Why hadn’t he just let Apple go to London? It hardly would have made a difference and at least they would have felt like they were doing something. That’s all they could hope for now. The illusion of productivity. Now he was trapped here, all alone with no one to turn to and no ideas in his head. He was so tired of feeling like a failure. Tired of everything, really. He was exhausted. Perhaps that was why he yanked Granby toward himself and kissed him. He simply didn’t know what else to do.

Granby didn’t kiss him back. He tried again and again. Nothing. But when he finally gave up and tried to draw away, Granby lunged after him and seized hold of his mouth. He pushed Laurence down to the ground and pinned him there with his hands above his head, mouth working as if to consume him with an appetite he’d thought long gone.

“I suppose neither of you know where Laila might be.”

Little’s voice was bone-weary, and yet chilling--angry in a way that proved Granby wrong. Little did care. He cared so much that even Apple’s constant life-draining screams couldn’t make him stop.

Granby scrambled up so fast he kneed Laurence in the stomach on the way up. “Augustine! I didn’t mean to...I don’t--”

“Apple’s hungry. Can one of you fetch her or must I do everything myself?”

“It was my fault,” Laurence said. He was on his feet and moving toward Little. Granby seemed frozen where he stood. “I kissed him. He didn’t want--he only wants you. But I didn’t know what to do and he’s so miserable. I wasn’t thinking.”

Augustine breezed past, the heels of his boots clacking on the tile as he went toward the servants quarters where Laila was sure to be. 

“Augustine!”

Granby’s voice rang out with so much pain, so long suppressed, that no one could be deaf to it, least of all Little who, Apple or no Apple, loved Granby with the whole of his heart. He turned and for a moment there was the old Little, the human-dragon who was ready to slaughter anyone, whoever it was, that had put such misery into his nestmate. 

“I miss you.” Granby’s voice was just a wisp of a thing. “I find myself wishing that the baby had never been born, that the war had never ended because even when I was afraid you would die on some Frenchman's sword, I had you, every night I had you, always you held me and told me that you would let no harm come to me as I slept. Augustine.” He held out his arms. They trembled. “Give her to Will. Please. I need--”

But then Apple, hungry, miserable, and sick with being miserable, rallied her strength and let loose with a howl that could pierce the very heavens. Little snapped back to the problem at hand. He hefted Apple in his arms and sealed away the love in his eyes. He turned and melted away.

Granby teetered. Laurence caught him and eased him down onto a chair, but Granby flinched away from him. And why not? Once again Laurence had made the problem worse.

“I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry.”

But what good was an apology? He puttered around, making Granby a cup of tea, but when he turned and saw the man with his face pillowed in his arms, he set the mug down gently near his elbow, touched his hair, and left him. It felt wrong to do it, but maybe it was the right thing. He didn’t know. His instincts were all muddled. He wanted to go to Little and force both him and Granby up to the bed for some necessary de-stressing, but he no longer trusted himself in anything. He was a shit father. A shit partner. And now, a shit friend. He couldn’t even flee to Temeraire. He felt too guilty to be comforted when he didn’t deserve it. He went a ways into the forest that surrounded the house, slid down the trunk of a tree, and fell asleep.

Tharkay found him. Somehow, Tharkay always knew how to find him. Perhaps it was his training as a tracker, but Laurence thought it was more than that. He didn’t think there was any place in the world he could go that Tharkay wouldn’t find eventually. They were linked, as they always had been. He woke to Tharkay’s lips, tinted with the taste of salt. Horrified, he thought he had made his stoic partner cry, but no, the salt was on his own face. He had been crying while he slept.

“I’m sorry.” The words were pushed into his mouth, swallowed, offered again. “I’m sorry. You were right. It’s all worthless and I took that frustration out on you.”

Laurence said nothing, too needy for more than words. He clutched Tharkay closer and began fumbling with his clothes. Tharkay’s hands were steadier than his own, but even he didn’t bother removing much. Their shirts stayed on and even trousers were only yanked down, not drawn off. They moved frantically against each other, the only words between them monosyllables like “more” and “yes” and “There!” A short while later when Tharkay collapsed on top of him, breathing hard, Laurence clutched him close, tried to speak, and broke down instead.

“It will be alright,” Tharkay said, his voice too desperate to be soothing. “Come, Will. You’ll see. Shh. I don’t know how to see you like this. Let me help you. Tell me what you need.”

But even Tharkay couldn’t fix their problems this time. 

“It’s my fault. All of it. I brought all of you into this. Everyone was happy before and now Granby’s forgotten how to smile, and Little will burn himself into an early grave, and here you are tied to all of this when all you’ve ever wanted was to be free and travel and maybe you wish I had never come to that boat to stop you.”

Tharkay sat up, his knees on either side of Laurence. “You’re talking nonsense, and as soon as you calm down you’ll see that’s true. I wasn’t free before. I was running. Always running. Then I found you. And I know John and Augustine feel the same way. Do you think it’s easy for inverts to find the kind of future you’ve given us? Apple will recover and when she does we'll all think ourselves fools for how we reacted. So hang in there. We need be strong for only a little while longer.”

Laurence strained upward and Tharkay met him halfway, taking his mouth, sweet, always sweet, even if his words tasted bitter. Laurence pulled him down and had him again, the softer, drawn-out pleasure of a second time. By the time Tharkay had pulled his clothes back into order he felt different. Not exactly hopeful, but determined. Steady. 

“Thank you. I needed that.”

Tharkay ran his hand down Laurence’s front. “Perhaps I’d best give the same treatment to Little. I suppose he needs it more than you do.”

Laurence smiled. “You’ll have better luck than I did. I have to figure out a way to apologize to John.” He'd told Tharkay all that had happened.

“Perhaps Augustine is the one in greater need of your reassurance.”

As always, Tharkay was right. Laurence kissed him one last time. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Just follow the sound of the screaming,” Tharkay directed.

Little was in Izkierka’s abandoned pavilion. Apple was taking one of her rare naps, but Little was wide awake. He was staring into the fire pit and continued to do so even as Laurence came up. He must have heard his approach because he started to speak. “I know I’m being a terrible partner to him, and a part of me appreciates the comfort you’re trying to give him. But the other part of me, the exhausted irrational part, wants to rip your throat out.”

“He was thinking of you,” Laurence said. “I think he would give anything to have you hold him right now. Go to him and let me take her.”

But Little didn’t move.

“I’ll do everything you usually do,” Laurence said. “She won’t be much worse off. Please. I feel so badly about what I did. Go to him. It will help. I know it will.”

But Little was shaking his head. “I can’t. I know all you say is true. I see how much he...but how can I leave her knowing how little time she has left?”

Laurence, who had been planning his next persuasive gambit, lost steam in his confusion. “Time? Surely you have all the time in the world. True, her suffering in the moment is to be considered, but in a few years she'll have no memory of any of this.”

Little finally looked at him, and in his face, Laurence realized was something he had been hiding for quite some time. “No,” Little said, and there was no doubt in his voice. “There will be no future for her.”

It was confusion still, not yet anger, that pushed Laurence on. “Of course there will be a future. She’s sure to accomplish more than all of us put together. Perhaps she'll spearhead the transformation of Europe into a dragon haven like China.”

“No, Will. This...these are her last few days. I should have told you sooner, but I needed your strength. All of your strength. I didn’t know what to do.”

Laurence climbed onto the pavillion, stalked forward, and seized Little by the arm. The jolt woke Apple, who immediately set to wailing, but for once Little paid it no mind. His hands began their usual ministrations, soothing by instinct, but his attention remained on Laurence. Which was good, because Laurence had important things to say. 

“It’s just colic. Infants all over the world have it. In a month it will be gone and we’ll have our lives back.”

But Little didn’t believe him. Worse than that, he could see in the man’s face a determination to set Laurence to rights. “I didn’t want to accept it either. I tried to convince myself that it would be different this time. But it’s the same as James. It’s all the same.”

“James?” Laurence would excuse himself later for the rudeness that desperation wrought. “Who the bloody hell is James?”

Little’s smile was so faint it might as well have not been there. “My brother,” he said. “He died 48 days after he was born.”


	4. Granby's hunger

“So you just left him there?” Tharkay asked for the third time. Usually, he was quicker to absorb things, but they were all severely sleep-deprived.

“What was I supposed to do?” Laurence asked. “Tell him he’s wrong? He’s already established himself as a martyr. There was no doubt in his eyes, Tenzing. The only one who can convince her is Apple herself.”

“We can’t let him wander around thinking she’s going to die for another month. It’s killing him.”

Granby cleared his throat. He’d been utterly silent since Laurence had grabbed both him and Tharkay and dragged them upstairs into Tharkay’s old room. Laurence closed his mouth and went to him, but even close up it was hard to hear him. “And we’re sure he’s wrong?”

Laurence almost  _ almost  _ slapped him upside the head the way he was always seeing Little do. Instead he lifted Granby’s hand to his mouth. “Yes,” he said. He was determined to have enough belief for all of them.

“It's just...Augustine isn't usually wrong.”

Tharkay came and took his other hand. “True, but he isn’t using his brain right now. Childhood trauma isn’t easy to defeat.”

Granby had told them what little he knew about James. Little had only spoken about him once on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar. His mother was sickly and prone to miscarriage. She lost four of Little’s prospective siblings before James was born. He had learned not to think much when his mother got pregnant, but he couldn’t help the mounting excitement when she got past the fifth month. All the others had been lost earlier. Still, even once James was born he could scarcely believe it. He was so excited to finally have a sibling. It was all he had ever wanted. So even when the baby started to cry he didn’t mind. Not really. He knew babies cried, and since he had no experience with them he couldn’t really say how much. He was only seven years old, but he took on the task of caring for the child. His mother was weak from her labors and he was such a capable child. He had nursed her through various ailments before. There was no reason, he figured, why he couldn’t do the same for her child. But the crying only worsened as the days passed. His arms were not as strong as they were now so he could not always be carrying him. Still, he kept him always in his lap and sang to him--perhaps even the same songs he sang to Apple now. But James had still died. He hadn’t even realized at first. He was always so relieved when James would sleep he didn’t try to rouse him until he felt the little body growing cold. When he pressed his face to the baby’s chest he could hear no heartbeat, and no breath passed the little creature’s lips. 

“I should have questioned him earlier,” Tharkay said. “I knew he was hiding something, but I assumed it was akin to what the rest of us were feeling. Guilt. Resentment. He was already going through so much. I didn’t want to risk offending him.”

Granby’s chagrined smile showed he had been led down similar lines of thinking. Laurence shook his head. “If even the two of you felt silenced there was never any hope that I’d get to the bottom of it.”

“And yet you did,” Tharkay said. “Thanks to you, we can start fixing this now.”

Laurence shook his head, but Granby was already agreeing. “Of course it was Will. He always bumbles his way to a solution.” Granby kissed his cheek. Already he was gaining a bit of life back in his face. Before he could think to stop him, Granby was out of the room. Laurence followed him down the stairs, shuffling after him like he was dreaming. 

Little had come in and was pulling pots out of the cabinets. He’d grown adept at one-handed cooking, though he still needed two hands for some things. It was why he liked to have Laurence in the kitchen when he prepared meals so he could hand Apple off at such moments. Laurence liked the arrangement because, in addition to teaching him how to cook, he could sometimes get Little to talk to him. The man was like Tharkay in that he often said exactly what Laurence most needed to hear even when (and maybe especially when) he least desired to hear it.

Granby came up behind Little and wrapped his arms around his waist. “I hope you’re planning a big meal. I’m starving.”

Little froze and he didn’t move for what felt like quite a long time. Nobody rushed him. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he turned, and as he did his fingers curled into the hair at the nape of Granby’s neck. When he spoke the words came out as a croak. “You or Immortalis. I don’t know who saved me more.”

Granby smiled, not his old blinding smile. He wasn't quite recovered enough for that. But it was a good smile. Not missing anything. “That’s sweet and all but did you miss the part where I said I was starving?”

Little laughed. He didn’t do it often, but Granby was a man of many talents and could coax it forward more often than not. Little cried a bit as he kissed him and everyone pretended not to notice. Laurence went and took Apple before Little could say anything, and for once he didn’t resist. With both hands-free he pulled Granby more securely into his front and kissed him as if they’d been separated for years. It had certainly felt like it.

Apple still cried. She cried on and off throughout the entire meal, and then afterword, and even snuffled while she fed, but it seemed less damaging somehow. Less relentless. Little still thought Apple was dying, but there was a relieved air about him now. Hiding what he thought had been an extra burden he couldn’t afford, and though nothing about the situation had changed, it seemed easier to take now that he could speak openly about it. He told them a bit more about James. How he had loved the feeling of a certain blanket, and how his favorite song had been London Bridge. “I still have that blanket. It’s tucked away in a trunk at home. I thought about bringing it for Apple but I worried the dragons would find it unsightly. It has a few mothholes.” Hearing that, Granby volunteered to immediately set out to fetch it. Laurence yanked him back down and told him to finish eating...not that it really seemed there was an end in sight. Granby had already finished two plates and was halfway through a third. When he tried to load up on a fourth, Tharkay stopped him. 

“You’ll make yourself sick,” he said. “Wait a few hours.”

But waiting was difficult for a man who had suddenly regained all his appetites. The poor man couldn’t seem to decide what he wanted more. To eat, to fuck, or to do pinwheels in the sky on Izkierka’s back. He probably would have devised some terrible combination of the three if Little had been up to it, but he wasn’t, and no one knew that more than Granby. So instead of hedonistic suicide, he curled up in Little’s side and spent the night riding out Apple’s misery with him. It was hardly what one would consider romantic, but when Tharkay caught them all napping on the couch the next morning he pulled Laurence out of bed and down the stairs to come see.

Sleeplessness abounded, but now that Granby was at his side again, Little was weathering it much better. The dark circles beneath his eyes remained, but he smiled sometimes and took pleasure in making food now that his partner was enjoying it again.

Granby, however, was the most changed. He admitted to them that he’d attributed Little’s reserve and silence to blame. He thought the man resented coming to live in Tharkay’s home and sometimes even worried, perhaps, that his partner would leave him once Apple was recovered. But then he’d found out that no, Little loved him as much as ever, and he had only been hiding his conviction of Apple’s impending death and felt much much better. Not good, exactly. But it meant that he could set to work trying to ease that pain now that he knew his presence alone wasn’t enhancing it. Mostly, he felt good to be useful again, something Laurence understood. He found that, now that Granby was helping Little, he could offer his own services to Granby and extend the chain of utility. He found himself humming as he completed simple tasks like making tea or straightening out the bedsheets. Tharkay was quick to notice the difference and grew more at ease now that he didn’t have to worry about his mate bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. The icing on the top of the cake was the discovery that Laila’s diet affected Apple’s comfort. One of the doctors Tharkay had ridden out to find that day suggested that Laila eliminate foods one by one to see if they made any difference on the child. they discovered that nuts seemed to cause a major spike in Apple’s wailing. Apple wasn’t cured once they were cut out, but the worst of her fits were eliminated and she started to sleep for longer bits at a time. The effects of more sleep made themselves clear when a couple of days later a determined-looking Little pressed Apple into Laurence’s arms, took hold of Granby’s wrist, and all but dragged him up the stairs. The pair didn’t return for several hours. When they did, Little was looking more settled and Granby could hardly make it down the stairs. He was wearing a dreamy expression of such clearly sated lust that Laurence was set to laughing every time he looked at him. “You’ll have to teach me some things,” he said. He still tended to shy away from any open discussions of sex, but his relief brought out his candor. “I have yet to see Tharkay make an expression approximating that one.”

“I think you’re doing just fine,” Little said, but he wore a look of such self-satisfaction that Laurence couldn’t help but suspect him a little. It was only compounded when he said, all off-hand and cool. “I think I’ll go up and change the sheets after dinner. John made a bit of a mess.” Granby’s toothy grin made it clear that “a bit” was an understatement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry guys I somehow managed to forget to add this part to the last chapter so here's chapter 3, part two (that's why both were so short) anyway, enjoy.


	5. An Unusual Hatchling

Two months later Apple slept through the night, which would have been cause enough for celebration had not an even bigger event come to shadow it. Towards dawn Izkierka roused them all with a sharp shout of “The egg hatches!”

They tumbled out of bed, one and all. Nobody bothered to use the stairs, choosing instead to fling themselves out the window and into Temeraire’s waiting talons. The dragons were nervous. Apple’s illness had meant t

their egg had gotten significantly less education than they would have liked. Tharkay had been the greatest asset to them, spending hours with the egg every day, talking to it, reading to it, and sharing all kinds of details about their lives that the dragons hadn’t thought to share. Laurence had tried his best to spend some time of every day with the egg, though he was sure he was less useful than Tharkay as he would often catch himself rambling about some anxiety or other about Apple or the others that he had promised himself he would keep out of his mouth. Granby and Augustine had taken to spending a lot of time with the egg starting about a month before the hatching when it was made clear that Apple was on the mend. Little had not, in good conscious, been able to talk to the egg about partnering with a child who was unlikely to live to see her first tooth, but all that was changed now, and he was most enthusiastic about making the connection. None of them forced the issue. All were careful to let the egg know it had a choice, that it need not partner itself with anyone if it had no wish for such a thing, and though the country was not as free to dragons as it should be, they would do their very best to give it all the freedom it could wish. And if that wasn’t enough they would travel around with it until it found a country it  _ did  _ like. All of them could stand to have a little adventure, but it would need to wait until Apple was grown a bit before they could all go. But if it wasn’t patient until then it could choose whichever of them it liked to escort it around, if it desired companionship during its search for either a home or a partner. They might have been overdoing it a bit, but all of them had seen too much dragon subjugation to be free of the worry of repeating it themselves. The dragons, of course, spent an even greater percentage of time with the egg, despite Temeraire’s talk of leaving the egg’s education to Laurence, he took the egg under his wing in a way Laurence had never seen before. Perhaps it was his dragon’s way of subverting his worry about Apple, or perhaps it was simply that no one desired a better companion for Apple than Temeraire did. Whatever the reason, Temeraire was most anxious to get back to the egg and hurdled them all down to the pavilion as fast as was safe. 

“She’s here!” Temeraire called to the egg. “As is everyone else. You can come out now!”

But with the words the shaking egg abruptly went still. After a minute or so of this, Laurence, who was holding Apple, knelt down beside the egg and laid his hand on it. Several spidering cracks covered the shell but no bits had yet broken off. “My dear, have we startled you?” The shell was warm under his hands, as all eggs were. Though he tried to keep it out of his voice, worry was seizing him. He’d never seen an egg go this still. Even poor Kulingile, who had been so scrawny and weak coming out of the shell, hadn’t taken this long of a rest while he was breaking free. “Do you desire privacy, or perhaps…” He didn’t know how to offer aid to a dragon without sounding condescending. “Perhaps you’d prefer if one of us were to get some of this shell away so you can stretch out more comfortably?”

“Nonsense,” Temeraire said. “A dragon must break its shell on its own. I don’t know what’s the matter with it. Egg! What is this? Either come out or don’t, but don’t go about waking up Laurence for nothing.”

Granby choked on a laugh, but Laurence was horrified. He was quick to reassure the egg that  _ no one  _ minded being woken up and they were so very eager to meet it, and it had only to say the word and they would prepare whatever food it desired. Immortalis had already gone to hunt something up and Tharkay had run to the stores to fetch meat and fish, but if it desired something else they could get that too. it had only to say the word.

“Quit treating it like a child. It’s a dragon, not a baby,” Granby said. “Oi! Come out and tell us your name.”

The egg shook, a docile shake, not enough to put any new cracks in the shell, but it was enough to drain away some of the worry. “That’s right,” Laurence said. “We would love to hear your name. But if you haven’t one ready, that’s okay too. Only please come out. I’m sure you’re lovely.”

Another shake, stronger this time. A crack, and then another one. More shaking. A bit of shell popped off exposing a bit of slime coated skin underneath. It was hard to tell the color from such a small bit, and the light wasn’t yet good, but it was dark. As dark as Temeraire? Another bit of shell a talon poked out of it, scrambling at the shell, cracking it further.

“That’s it, darling,” Granby crooned, breaking his own advice as he urged the dragon on. He was on his knees beside the egg. One of the slimy bits of shell was in his lap. It would no doubt be added to the bits of Immortalis’ and Izkierka’s that both he and Little had saved from the hatchings. Laurence hadn’t thought to do the same and regretted it. Temeraire’s had been such a beautiful shell. 

Another Talon punched through the shell only to recede to put pressure on another spot. The egg was rocking wildly now as the creature within threw away restraint and set to breaking free in earnest. Tharkay returned and dumped the food in his arms to the floor as he hurried close.

“What a lovely color.”

Even with the slime things were growing clearer now. One leg was entirely out of the shell and a bit of snout was poking out from another crack. The newborn dragon was a green so deep it would seem black without light. The color of seaweed but glittering in a way seaweed never would. It reminded Laurence even more strongly of Temeraire’s hatching, and he was only too glad that this time he would not be confined to a ship.

“Oh,” the creature said and paused briefly in its efforts. His head was free and he could finally get a good look at all those gathered. “Is that her?”

Laurence shuffled still closer and held his daughter out. “Yes, yes, this is Apple.”

“Step back,” the hatchling said. Once the immediate space surrounding him was clear, he gave one massive push that set the chords in his neck to bulging. A crack appeared, and then, with a sharp splintering, the shell blew outward and the majority of it hit the deck in two large pieces. The hatchling shook himself to dislodge some of the clinging bits of shells and unfurled his wings as he stretched. The sun was not yet visible on the horizon, but light was beginning to filter through the night, and what little of it that there was seemed to gather around the hatchling and play off the lighter iridescence of its open wings. Laurence’s breath caught, but he stopped himself from reaching out. He held himself steady and offered, again, his daughter.

The hatchling did not have a full ruff as Temeraire did, but there was a half crown of tendrils around his head. He was sleek in the way his mother was, but perhaps that was only his newly hatched state and he would grow to fill with his father’s bulk. Laurence found himself delighting in the game of trying to match all the newly hatched creature’s traits. He would be a beautiful dragon (not that any of them could be considered truly ugly) and Temeraire so delighted in beautiful things. He found himself making a desperate wish that this hatchling would somehow defy the established way of things and connect himself to the other dragons in a way not defined by competition. For so long he had wished to see feelings of true family among the dragons, and yet, despite all they had been through, it still seemed that it was feelings of friendship and familiarity that defined their relationships with each other. He had thought, with Izkierka’s insistence on another egg, that Temeraire would raise the dragon to the level of nestmate, but so far, despite their improved relations, this was nothing but idealized quackery on his part.

“She's so small,” the hatchling breathed. He hung back, afraid to touch her. Laurence had overhead the dragons talking to the egg about the frailty of humans. No doubt the hatchling thought that even his words would be enough to knock his daughter over. He pulled his head up and looked Laurence in the eyes. “Help me. I don’t know how to protect her.”

Carefully Laurence laid Apple onto the deck by the dragon’s feet. It was winter, but a fire had been blazing merrily in the firepit every moment since the egg had been laid, and that, combined with all the dragons squeezing close, made the space  _ too  _ warm. “You needn’t be afraid. She grows stronger every day, and soon she will be clambering all over you. Here. Do not fear to touch her. All the other dragons have.   
He thought the native possessiveness of dragons would bristle at the idea of sharing, and it worked. The hatchling bent his head to oh so carefully brush Apple’s cheek with one of the tendrils on his face. “She is warm, and so very soft. Surely, she will break? Is there no armor I can give her?”

Laurence’s heart swelled in his chest. Temeraire need not have worried. This dragon would be nothing like his sister. Already it was showing a tenderness Laurence didn’t think possible for one so newly hatched.

Granby reached out a hand, slowly, to give the hatchling time to reject him if he wanted, he set his hand to the creature’s neck. “Darling, you must eat. I’m sure you’re ravenous and there’s no need at all to ignore it. None of us are going anywhere. Eat. Please. I feel hungry just looking at you.”

“But if I eat, I will sleep, and I don’t want to sleep yet.”

Tharkay made a sound, aborted words, Laurence guessed. He realized, with a start, that this was, in essence, his partner’s hatchling. The rest of them had all experienced the birth of their dragon, but this feeling would be new to his nestmate. He took Tharkay’s hand and pulled him down to kneel with him before the dragon. The hand he held trembled. “He is so lovely. So very lovely. perhaps I am dreaming still.”

The hatchling cocked his head. “Tharkay. Laurence’s nestmate. The only one not partnered to a dragon. I thought, perhaps, you did not quite like dragons as much as the rest, but I am pleasing to you?”

Tharkay reached and was met by a newly hatched snout. The hatchling twined its tail around Tharkay setting him to uncharacteristic trembling. “You will stay with us?” It was so unlike Tharkay to presume in such a way, but it just came bursting out of him. “Say you will, even if you think you will change your mind later, say it for now.”

“Whyever should I leave? While all throughout my egg growth you have been caring for me so well.”

Laurence had never heard a dragon express gratitude for the care of their egg. It was a given. Eggs were meant to be treasured. But perhaps this egg didn’t know that. It hadn’t been raised in a nursery with others. But even if it did know (for Temeraire was not likely to have neglected any bit of the egg’s education) perhaps it felt gratitude anyway. Either way, he understood Tharkay’s reaction. He was finding it difficult to breathe himself.

“By god, it’s good I’m partnered already or I would nab the creature for myself,” Granby said, voicing aloud what they were all thinking. Perhaps that was why Tharkay was so overcome. Laurence already had his bond with Temeraire to steady him.

“But I am to partner with Apple,” the hatchling said, disentangling himself from Tharkay.

“Only if you want to,” Little said, “And only if you’re both sure, some years into the future.”

“I’m sure. She is my treasure and my purpose. I love her.”

Had Laurence not already lost himself to the creature, he would have then.

“You’re a little young to have a purpose,” Tharkay said, but didn’t try to dissuade him any more than that. He couldn’t. His bias as one of Apple’s fathers didn’t allow it. Still, it was more than Laurence offered. 

Little, who was industriously cleaning the slime off of the hatchling, paused his work to scratch under it's chin. The creature’s eyes slid shut as he purred his pleasure. Laurence could hold himself back no longer. He bent forward and kissed the hatchling between the eyes. “And what are we to call you?”

If dragons could blush, perhaps the hatchling would have. He seemed to glow with all the attention he was receiving. “I hoped Apple might name me, but Temeraire warned me that she would not come to speech for a while yet and that it is a perfectly normal trait in human hatchlings.”

“Eat,” Temeraire said. “We can discuss this later.”

But the hatchling didn’t eat. He bent over Apple until his crown of tendrils was touching her chin. He considered her in silence for a minute, two, almost five minutes passed before he raised his head. All those gathered had remained silent, waiting, except for Izkierka who had used everyone’s distraction to eat some of the salt fish Tharkay had brought up from the cellar.

“Blink,” The hatchling finally said. “My name is Blink.”

As if prophetic, the proclamation set them all to blinking. As usual it was Temeraire who voiced the general consensus. “What?”

Blink stared up at them, challenge in his eyes. “You cannot change it.”

“But why  _ Blink _ ?” Granby asked (of the humans he was the most likely to voice aloud the opinion everyone else didn’t know how to speak.)

“Because that's all Apple can do right now,” the hatchling said without a trace of embarrassment. “And it will remind me of our beginning, no matter how much we grow and change.”

“I think it’s stupid,” Izkierka said. “You should have consulted me. I’m amazing at names.”

Only Granby laughed.

“Blink,” Laurence said. It was simple enough that it was sure to be the first thing Apple learned. “Welcome to our family.”

Blink looked at him and bared his teeth in what, he probably figured, was a dragon approximation of a smile. It would be terrifying when he grew up. It was kind of terrifying now. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. Immortalis, who had grown anxious with how wrongly Blink was conducting his first few minutes, picked the stag up and shoved it into the hatchling’s arms. “Eat,” the dragon said. “Now.”

Blink didn’t need to be told twice, with all the messiness of a newborn dragon he dove into his meal and did not emerge. When mostly bone was remaining, he swayed where he stood and said, “I think…a little nap now…sorry for waking you.” And fell asleep right on the stag’s sternum.

Blink slept soundly and deeply, a good thing, because the young hatchling would probably have been embarrassed by just how much attention he was receiving. The humans were, one an all, addled with love. Poor Tharkay was the most affected and could not make himself leave the young dragon’s side. He had pulled Blink from the animal carcass and arranged the young dragon so that its head rested in his lap. At first, Tharkay had been afraid to do much more than sit there in silence, but when it was made clear that nothing would wake the creature, he put his hand to the dragon hide and sang soft lullabies as he stroked him. Had there not been work to do, Laurence would have just stood there, captivated by the sweetness of the sight, but Blink’s arrival meant a host of responsibilities that needed to be addressed. Frontmost was food. Fresh food. Temeraire, who had read every nursery book for dragons he could get his talons on (a great many of them in Chinese, sent to him by his mother after he had laid his first egg) claimed that a young dragon grew best on a steady diet of fresh animal flesh. Early nutrition was critical for a dragon’s growth. A dragon’s full size could vary by several tons depending on how it was fed during its first weeks of life. “Just think of what Kulingile could have been,” Granby said when he found out. “If Demane had been able to feed him as much food as the greedy little thing desired. The largest creature in dragon history, probably.” It meant that Little was assigned full-time kitchen duty, and since no one could bear to pull Tharkay away from Blink, that meant Laurence was responsible for Apple, and Granby was responsible for everything else. “Don’t you worry,” he told them all as he hopped onto Izkierka’s back (after cleaning the pavilion clean of blood) “I won’t let them steal anyone’s pets. Well, at least not from anyone we like.”

Laurence wrote to the covert about the Dragon’s birth. He had no intention of allowing them to take his hatchling into the corps, but, if he didn’t want to be accused of breeding his own private dragon army, he had to report Blink’s existence to the government. Still, he didn’t trust any of the people in power, and that meant that after he had sent off the letter, he wrote a great many more to every bureaucrat he knew, telling them about Blink and inviting them to a party celebrating the dragon’s birth. The party was Tharkay’s idea (who trusted people even less than Laurence did). He figured that if they could ingratiate themselves with enough people with loud voices and deep pockets maybe they could win liberation for all their dragons, even after Temeraire and Izkierka’s war fame faded. Though it was likely that Izkierka would be thrilled if another war rolled around, Temeraire had felt growing disillusionment in the closing months of the war that had been sparked by his conviction of Laurence’s execution. Since the war’s end he had been reading a growing number of philosophical and pacifist texts and had engaged with his mother deeply on the subject through a series of exceedingly long letters. He was even in the process of writing a book on the matter—a book Laurence had volunteered his services for, but he’d been passed over in favor of Little whose skill with the pen dwarfed his own. It was possible that, come another war, all the dragons would be raring to go, but even if that was the case, Laurence wanted that to be the dragons’ choice—not an edict by the government. 

He read the letters aloud to Little after he wrote them (the man really was excessively good with words) and re-phrased with his suggestions. They scheduled the party for that night. Firstly because the immediacy of the invitation would not give people time to second guess their initial excitement of attending, but mostly because they needed to gain power and approval  _ before  _ the government could try to call Blink up for training. They would, undoubtedly, insist on the training, and Lawrence was even willing to let it happen. But not yet. He didn’t want them polluting Blink’s mind until he’d had a little while to explore himself first. True, the hatchling wasn’t as impressionable as the usual human corps recruit (a seven year old boy had a lot fewer autonomous thoughts than a dragon even a few hours old) but even a dragon’s early years had a large affect on their later development. The Chinese had studied the effects extensively, and Laurence had seen the effects firsthand. He had often wondered if Temeraire would have experienced any warlust at all if he hadn’t been born into the middle of one. The same, he realized, he could ask of himself. 

Granby had promised that he would stop into town before the hunt to drop off Little’s “grocery list” and would pick up the goods after Blink’s next meal was tended to. Laurence only hoped everything would have enough time to get done. He had already written to Jane and his brother to borrow their servants for the evening’s entertainment (he could have hired some from town but he trusted the familiar staff and knew they wouldn’t be frightened by a horde of dragons) but so much would rely on Little. Temeraire’s chef could cook for the dragons, but Little had taken on the entirety of the human food. Laila, Laurence, and Emily could help with minor tasks like chopping and peeling vegetables, washing dishes, and generally getting in the way, but Apple still needed to be cared for and fed and the pavilion needed to be prepped and decorated. Tharkay offered to help, but everyone refused him. He was ordered not to move from Blink’s side lest the creature wake up. None of them could stand the idea of leaving the newly born dragon alone for a minute even though Temeraire had, before he left, made it quite clear that a hatchling was an independent creature hardly in need of so much spoiling. “Oh, because I’m sure Laurence left you to your own devices after  _ your  _ hatching,” Granby had said. Temeraire treated that with haughty silence.

“Augustine, please, you’re going to kill yourself at this rate,” Laurence begged come late afternoon when Little had covered every surface in the house with food and had yet to taste a morsel himself. He forcibly took the ladle from the man’s hand and pushed a mug of tea into its place. Little diluted the tea with cold water so that he could chug it down in a matter of seconds. “I’ll be all right,” he assured Laurence. “I’ve done more cooking on shorter notice before.”

Laurence didn’t believe him and said so. Little gave him a harried looking smile and said, “Really. Just ask John.”

When Granby came in to tell them of Blink’s second feeding, he confirmed that Little had indeed prepared the corps with a Christmas dinner in two hours after the cook had been taken with the flu. “I think that’s when I fell in love with him. I’d never tasted such good cooking. I thought at first that they’d hired a team of chefs to show their appreciation for the corps, but of course that wasn’t it. The corps has never had that kind of budget. I went to the kitchen to investigate and found him putting the finishing touches on dessert. I was so shocked I might have asked him to marry me right then if I’d had the capability of speech.”

Little shook his head. “He’s exaggerating,” he said, but he still leaned away from the stove for a moment to kiss his partner.

Blink was worried by all the fuss. They’d warned him about the party while he was still in the egg, and he supported its purpose, but he hadn’t realized just how much trouble it would all be.

“Are you really all right?” He asked Little when he came out of the kitchen (on his only break) to give Blink some affection when he next woke up. “Immortalis says you are working too hard and that it is my fault.”

“I’m more than fine. Immortalis just doesn’t like when I cook for anyone but him and Granby. The only thing you should be worrying about is what you’d like for your next meal.”

“Anything is fine. Everyone is going to so much trouble, but really I am so hungry when I wake up that I can hardly taste the food. Honest.” Already the small (but visibly growing) dragon was falling asleep again, only this time, Laurence was volunteered by Tharkay to take his place. 

“You’ve all coddled me enough,” he said. “And I figure you can watch Apple out here just as well as from inside.” But still he gathered the sleepy dragon in his arms and pressed their faces together one last time before hurrying away. Blink was only too happy to be near Apple again but was distressed by how little time he would be spending with her in the forseeable future with all the sleeping and eating. “Don’t worry,” Laurence assured him. “At this stage, you won’t miss much. Humans are dreadfully slow growers.”

So Blink went back to sleep, but he had Laurence lie down beside him with Apple between them. Blink was still sleeping when the first of the guests began to arrive but he woke up when huge platters of roasted meats were brought out. 

“Oh!” Blink cried out as he woke “That cannot be a real smell. I must be dreaming. Nothing could possibly smell so good.”

Laurence took intense pleasure in telling the hatchling that no, he was not dreaming, and yes, he could eat as much as he liked. 

“But I can’t fall back asleep while our guests are here. Many of them have come to see me and there are few things duller than a sleeping dragon.”

Laurence assured him that most in the government were at least as dull even (and perhaps especially when ) they were fully awake. Still, Blink was not reassured. He asked Laurence if perhaps they could move away from the meat so the smell wouldn’t be quite as tempting but Laurence refused. He had the cook set the first platter down right in front of the hatchling and told him to eat. “I will wake you once dinner for the humans is finished. That will take quite some time as fancy people like to extend meals for hours and hours. Tharkay also plans to liberally douse them with wine and that will extend it even further. It’ll also have the benefit of making them braver and less inhibited. Of course, we can’t make them so drunk that they don’t remember what happened tonight, but don’t you worry. Tharkay is an expert in judging all matters. He’ll get the balance exactly right. You’ll see.” As Laurence spoke, Blink caved and inhaled the contents of the first platter.

“Oh! Oh this is so very good. Did Captain Little make this? He is so talented.”

“Of course not,” Immortalis sniffed. “That is regular food prepared by Temeraire’s chef. It’s impossible to draw a comparison.”

Laurence hid his smile in his shoulder as Blink apologized. He didn't point out that the chef had come highly recommended and highly trained and that Temeraire, something of a food snob, would have hired only the best. What was the harm in letting Blink believe Little was the best cook in the world? The guests certainly seemed to think so. Tharkay who was technically the main host (as this was his house) received a plethora of compliments. Everyone wanted to know who was responsible for the catering. That meant that Granby, full to bursting with pride, kept dragging the highly self-conscious Little out with introductions like, “And you people wanted to waste his talents with drills and formations.” 

After the fourth time, Little grabbed Laurence’s arm and hissed, “The next time he starts heading for the kitchens you’re in charge of distracting him. You hear me? Suck him off if you have to. I can’t ice the cake if he’s barging in every two seconds.”

Laurence would have laughed had the look in the captain’s eyes been less serious. As it stood, he simply agreed and gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze. So when Granby stood up with that look in his eye, Laurence called him over and asked him to sit.

“Can’t stay long. The general’s wife says she would sell her soul for one of Little’s mince pies. I have to tell him--”

“Have I ever told you how much I love your hands?”

It was the first thing Laurence could think of to say, but it worked--oh how it worked. All thought about the General’s wife vanished as Granby flushed a deep pink. “What?”

Laurence took Granby’s hands, one flesh and one hook, and smoothed his thumbs over the knuckles. “They’re so different from Tenzing’s. His are delicate, all long fingered and finely boned, but when I look at your hands I remember my father’s. When I was a child I thought he was the strongest man in all the world.”

Granby was shocked into silence. Even after all their time together it was a rare moment indeed when Laurence waxed poetic about his childhood. 

“As I grew older we grew apart but as a small child I worshipped him. I remember slipping my hand into his and having it dwarfed. I would feel even smaller then, so very small, but also safe.” He changed his hold to allow their fingers to knot together. “I don’t feel small when I hold your hand, but I do feel safe. Is that strange? I’m older than you, but you’ve always felt more capable.”

Granby tried to find his voice. His throat worked but no sound came out. Laurence smiled. It awed him that he had such an effect on the man. He knew how deep Tharkay’s love ran, but he could not usually overwhelm him in the way he did Granby. “I first saw your hands when they were working on Temeraire’s harness. I knew so little about the corps. I was terrified of making some dreadful mistake that would cost me the lives of my dragon and crew, but the sight of your hands, so capable, so strong, they soothed me then as they soothe me now.” His heart was growing soft, pliant, in his chest. He’d forgotten that this was meant to be an exercise in distraction. “Do you remember when I named you my first lieutenant?” he asked. “I think, even then, I knew that you would be special to me, always.”

“ _ Will _ .” Granby was trembling. “You don’t know how I… I would do anything for you.  _ Anything. _ ”

_ I know _ , Laurence thought, but he didn’t say it. He also knew that Granby wanted to kiss him. But he couldn’t give that to him. Not with all these people around. So he let go of the man’s hand and asked him to stay awhile with Blink and Apple. “I want to check on Tenzing. When people get on his nerves he has a tendency to eviscerate them.”

He was sure his nestmate was fine, but Granby needed some quiet time to recuperate. He had gone too far. Again. It meant apologizing to Little, maybe even to Tharkay. He didn’t know. In the moment these conversations felt natural, but after he came away the guilt and confusion would come. Was this cheating? Was he making love to Granby? He wouldn’t dream of speaking so to an ordinary friend. But to Temeraire he would. Then again, Temeraire would be upset if he caught Laurence speaking that way to another dragon. 

“You’re flushed,” Tharkay said, when Laurence approached him. “Have you been hitting the cask?”

“You know I haven’t.” Since that fateful night of Tharkay’s confession he hadn’t indulged in more than a glass of wine at a time.

Tharkay put a hand to his cheek and then to the back of his neck without a care of who might be watching. “Did they build up the fire in the pavilion too high? You’ve always been more sensitive to the heat than I. Is Apple okay?”

“Apple is lovely. Your party is lovely, and you, my dear, are unfairly lovely.”

Tharkay laughed. “You’ve been flirting with John again.”

There it was, proof again that Tharkay was a magician and a mindreader. “How the devil did you know that?”

“Because you’re always euphoric afterwards. Also aroused. You’ll want to fuck me tonight.”

Tharkay said the words in an undertone, but Laurence still jerked his head around to see who might have heard. No one was in the immediate vicinity but  _ still _ . “Tenzing!”

“Don’t worry. I want to fuck you too.”

Laurence face burned with the twin flames of embarrassment, and, yes, damn it, arousal. Tharkay laughed again, only this time the sound came from deeper in his chest, low and smooth. Laurence knew he’d either have to find some opportunity to kiss him, quick, or he’d end up biting his own tongue off trying to stop himself.

“ _ Tenzing _ .”

Tharkay smiled--a slow self-satisfied thing. He leaned in close, close enough to feel his breath, warm and steady on his ear, and said, “You called my name, last night, while you slept. I worry sometimes, since he’s so sweet and so near, but it was my name you called.”

He left without giving Laurence a chance to reply and immediately gained an audience with two parliament members. Laurence was left to gaze after him, confused and horny, until Jane caught him up by the arm and demanded to be told, in great and glorious detail, every second of Blink’s hatching. Talk of the young dragon proved distracting enough. Jane was well again, but it had taken her a long time to recover from her pregnancy. A depression, of sorts. She’d experienced it after her first pregnancy, but hadn’t told Laurence because she’d known it would have pained him. Instead she suffered in silence, and swore Emily to silence as well, and Laurence had been so busy with Apple’s Colic that he hadn’t the time for many proper visits. By the time he  _ did  _ finally figure out something was wrong, Jane was already on the road to recovery. It meant Laurence was always writing to her to ask her how she was, and finding excuses to stop by or to send her flowers. Jane was often calling him a great floundering ninny. She appreciated Tharkay’s visits though. His nextmate was a great comfort to her, and they had excellent conversations that never bored her as interrogations into her health did.

When Blink woke again all the remaining (and coherent) guests gathered around to hear him speak. Blink thanked them all for coming and spoke a bit about his experience inside the egg and the wonderful attention of his dragon family and human caretakers. “I wondered, in the dark of my shell, if my father ever slept, so often was he reading to me, and all manner of fascinating works. I remember in particular how he struggled to read to me of Diogenes and his cynicism. I remember finding it amusing that a great mind like my father’s could appreciate the concept of asceticism while still putting immense value in the accumulation of material wealth.”

Tharkay smiled to hear this, and so did several others, but on many other faces, Laurence saw, were expressions of confusion. Some few, soldiers and servants, simply didn’t understand what Blink was saying, but others understood perfectly, and frowned because of it. Expressions of confusion turned to disbelief the longer that Blink spoke. He was too different. Too against everything they believed a dragon could stand for. They didn’t buy it. Perhaps they thought Blink had been given a speech to memorize. Perhaps they thought the hatchling mischievous and plain making it up, but they didn’t like what he said, and they began to express it through fidgeting and muttering. When Tharkay saw Laurence was starting to panic, he put a hand on his arm and said, “Some were never going to accept it. Others will come around with time. We’re not going to give up. And we’re not going to let any harm come to the dragons.”

But still, it was a heavy heart that he said goodbye to the guests, and some he couldn’t call up any words of courtesy for. He had let idealism run away with him again, he realized. He had thought that no one, no matter how biased, would be able to resist Blink’s charms. How could they fail to see a dragon’s worth--its potential as something other than a war machine--when they encountered a disposition like Blink’s--so sweet and clever, not even a day out of the shell? But so many still hated dragons. It hadn’t helped that they had been the deciding point in the war. It didn’t matter that Temeraire had prepped the country with speeches and writings of his own. Individuals were open to their cause, but the general populace (and, specifically, those used to consolidating power) had no interest in changing their opinions on the matter. They would eat Little’s food, and drink Tharkay’s wine, but when they talked to their friends the next day they would be eager to share false tales about dragon viciousness and greed.

He thought nothing would lift his mood, but then, once everyone but a select few had gone home, Little carried the cake, shaped like blink, to the pavilion, set it down in front of the hatchling and asked him to blow out the candles and make a wish.

Blink just looked at the cake, astounded, and asked, “Is this what I look like?”

There had been a mad rush to fetch Blink a mirror. It was a testament to the business of the day that they had forgotten to show him such a thing, but there was great satisfaction in watching the slightly-more-awake dragon twist in front of his reflection with great curiosity and many questions. “But what do these spines do, mother?” and “My air sacs seem proportionally smaller than yours, father. Does this mean I shall lack the divine wind?”

Maximus (who had shown up late to the party, having flown all the way in from scotland) was still eating while this happened, but paused to suggest that, whatever skills he  _ did  _ end up acquiring should be put to better use than Ning who was “An even worse show off than Izkierka.”

“Will my sister not be coming then?” the hatchling asked.

Berkley snorted. He too was eating (he had put on more weight since the end of the war and looked all the better for it.). “I would put away those notions of family when it comes to  _ that  _ creature. She certainly won’t be thinking that way about you. Temeraire’s the one who will steer you right. Damn good dragon. Maximus just dotes on him. Gets depressed when he hasn’t seen him in a while. Why just the other day…” And there followed a long winding story with little point that Blink nonetheless listened to every word of until Izkierka cut the man off with a curt “you talk too much. My son must sleep.” Everyone (including Izkierka herself) thought she would resent the hatchling once it was born, but she had been roped into loving him just like everyone else. Perhaps it was the sweet worship in his eyes when he called her “mother.” There weren’t very many dragons (or people, for that matter) who looked at Izkierka with genuine affection. Granby, of course, had always thought the world shone out of her eyes, and others, like Temeraire and Laurence, had come to love her with time. Blink was in the first (and more precious) group with Granby, and so when he shuffled over and burrowed into her (extremely warm) hide, she wrapped a protective wing around him and growled at the guests to leave lest they wake her sleeping progeny.

“Now there’s a creature even less cut out for motherhood than I was,” Jane teased, but she did as she was asked and bid the others good night. Excidium gave his compliments to Temeraire. “Very well turned out indeed. A delightful fellow, though a bit dreamy. We’ll be sure to keep him off the front lines, eh?”

Temeraire didn’t want to hear about  _ any  _ lines, unless they were lines of poetry. He had spoken to the egg in every language he knew. He’d also made Laurence place an ad in the paper, requesting anyone with proficiency in foreign languages to come forth and teach him and the egg. Few were willing to answer the summons when they heard dragons were involved, but a few adventurous types came out of the woodwork and were only too eager to have such enthusiastic students. Temeraire didn’t want to push Blink too much in his first day out of the shell, but he’d been eager to know whether the celestial gift for languages had bred true. When he asked the hatchling weather he had difficulty understanding him sometimes when he’d been inside the shell, Blink had answered, in perfect Chinese, “No father. I find the language of our ancestors beautiful. You are a wonderful teacher.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to be replaced as the favorite,” Laurence teased. Temeraire was quick to assure him that no such danger was looming, but Laurence knew that, in any case, he would feel no resentment. So few people shared Temeraire’s love for languages, and no one could pick them up as he did. Laurence had long mourned his own inability to satisfy his dragon’s many intellectual needs and desired, most vehemently, to find outlets for Temeraire’s genius. He had rejoiced in discovering Percistia’s mathematical ability, and he had found others, mostly human, who could stimulate Temeraire in other subjects. It took work to find individuals who were willing to work with, and admit mental inferiority to, a dragon. But now, in blink, there was the perfect candidate. Smart enough to keep Temeraire fascinated, and genial enough not to bristle when Temeraire went into “lecturing” mode. 

In laying Blink’s egg, Temeraire thought he was doing his partner a favor. How wonderful, then, that Laurence could feel that the one who stood to benefit most from the hatchling’s presence, was Temeraire himself.

Nobody wanted to sleep inside. Blankets and pillows were fetched and all of them got comfortable amidst the sprawl of dragons. Apple got the prime spot in the warmth of Blink’s belly. It was amazing how calm she became around the hatchling. Though her colic had greatly improved, she was still prone to fussing, but not, it seemed, beside her dragon. It might have been his warmth, but more likely, Laurence thought, it was Blink’s utter devotion. He could sense things that humans couldn’t and he seemed to know exactly what Apple needed at every moment.

He hadn’t been making lipservice when he claimed to love her. No one, not even the most cynic among them, could fail to see the devotion that shone out of the dragon’s eyes. It unnerved Little. “Have we brainwashed him? He doesn’t seem to think he has a choice about her. Dragons are loyal creatures, sure, but usually a captain has to do  _ something  _ for his dragon to make him love her, and Apple… well, she won’t be  _ useful  _ in that sense for a long while yet. She cannot feed her dragon, provide him with treasure or honors, or even talk to him.”

He spoke after Blink was asleep again. He and Granby were lying in Immortalis’s embrace, who was the dragon closest to Apple and Blink (an honor he’d won because he was the smallest and left more room for the humans). Tharkay, who was nestled against Blink and Apple (with Laurence slotted behind him) called out in a soft voice, “And you, Augustine, did you need Apple to  _ do  _ anything to make you love her?”

Little raised himself up on one arm. Granby, who had had the most physical exertion that day, was already fast asleep. “But surely that's different? Daughters need not do anything for their fathers to love them. But partners…”

“Blink will probably be more of a protector than partner at first,” Laurence said. He had his face pressed to Tharkay’s hair, and yes, damn it, Tharkay was right and he  _ did  _ want to mate with him, but how on earth he was going to manage that he didn’t know. “His feelings will change to accommodate her new abilities as she grows.”

“Perhaps they will not change so very much,” Tharkay said. He was fully aware of Laurence’s desire and kept shifting around and pulling his arms tighter to tease him, the devil. “I have always thought that your dragons were more parent than partner. Think of how they fuss over you, making sure you are not too hot or cold, that you are fed, comfortable, and sleeping well. They jump to defend you at the slightest provocation and they often think that they know best when it comes to your well-being. No, your dragons are all mothers, and so, I think, will Blink be to Apple.”

Little and Laurence absorbed that. How many times had Granby called Temeraire a mother hen? And Immortalis could be even worse. He suffered terrible anxiety when he was separated from Little, and would not stand for teasing of his precious captain (unless it came from Granby’s mouth). God help the idiot who deliberately insulted him. Laurence had heard a story from Chenery about another soldier in the corps who had, in a passing way, referred to Little as “that artsy poof.” No one save Little himself, who’d come running out from the mess hall, had been able to get Immortalis off the man, and by that point most of his ribs were broken and he had shit himself.

“Well,” said Little, “I suppose she could use a mother.” He looked down at Granby and pushed a bit of hair off his sleeping face. “No offense, my prince, but Izkierka isn’t exactly the nurturing type.”

Nobody, even had Granby been awake, could argue against that. Laurence watched as Little bent over his nestmate and brushed a kiss to his temple. His guilt stirred. “Augustine.”

Little looked over, mild curiosity on his face. “Yes?”

“Earlier, you told me to distract him, but I--I think I might have...”

Little nodded. “Yes. He told me.”

Laurence could have dropped it. He was in the clear, but it didn’t feel like it. He sat up, leaving the warmth and protection of Tharkay’s back behind. “You were right. On the night of Apple’s birth, you warned me and I didn’t listen. Perhaps I have been hurting him, and Tenzing too. I don’t know why I keep--In the moment it feels right but afterwards...Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I place myself entirely in your judgement.”

Little looked at him, his face smooth. Expressionless. He and Tharkay were similar in that way. They tended to shut off their faces while they were thinking. Tharkay sometimes studied him like this, but it was more unnerving when Little did it. Probably because he had less insight as to what the captain might be thinking. 

“There is nothing now but to continue as you are. I wasn't right, though it is kind of you to say so. I was jealous and possessive. I wanted all of John’s happiness to come from me. Stupid, I know. We of the corps know that so much of a man’s heart already belongs to his dragon. Perhaps that knowledge made me even more determined to monopolize the remaining scraps.”

“It isn’t scraps,” Laurence said. “What John feels for you--”

Little waved him to silence. “Merely an expression. Listen. I was wrong.  _ I  _ was the one who was causing him hurt, not you.”

Laurence began to shake his head “no” but Little silenced him again with a raised hand. “John’s love is a wonderful thing. It makes people feel good, strong. It’s such a positive force that to push feelings of guilt and wrongdoing into it is nothing short of tragedy. Tenzing has helped me to see...I should rejoice in the size of his heart, not try to limit it. So if you love him as I think you do, please, continue to love my John. Help me to make him happy. At the heart of it, once my feelings of panic and inferiority have been pushed aside, that is all I really wish for him.”

Laurence stood up. Bits of dragon were curled everywhere, but he carefully picked his hair through it all and knelt before Little. He didn’t know what to say. His instinctive reaction was to blurt out his innocence and reassure the man that he would not, could not, ever take Granby from him. But that wouldn’t be productive, and he didn’t want to cheapen Little’s sacrifice with useless words. Instead he held out his hand, and waited with bated breath until the other man took it. Laurence closed his eyes and exhaled. Little’s hand was warm and a little tense, but it was steady. He wanted badly to give something to the man in return, but he didn’t know what. Perhaps something would occur to him, later, but for now he would have to remain in his debt. He opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

Little nodded. Perhaps he couldn’t trust himself to speak. Laurence made his way back to Tharkay and pulled him in close. He was afraid to ask his partner what he thought. He still felt shame for his behavior. He wanted to hide. He also wanted to hear Tenzing say that he loved him. He had only ever heard him say it to others. Tharkay had called Laurence “The man I love” and had even, to Temeraire, referred to him as “my nestmate” but to Laurence himself he had never, and probably would never, say the words “I love you.” Most of the time it didn’t matter. Tharkay loved him. He had known it since Australia. And he didn’t need to hear it because he also knew that Tharkay was a man who felt most comfortable expressing his feelings through action. But still...sometimes… “Good night, my love,” he said. Because it helped when he said it for the both of them.


	6. Something Rude

Laurence woke to the sound of Blink’s growling stomach. The hatchling was awake and silently staring down into Apple’s face. Laurence bolted upright. “My dear, you must be ravenous. Wait just a moment and I’ll--Let’s get you down to the pasture. You can have one of the cows. I’m sure one of the others will have whatever you don’t finish.”  
Tharkay woke as soon as Laurence moved, and Little awakened to the sound of his voice. They were just as horrified by the predicament and jumped up to help. “But why didn’t you wake one of us?” Little demanded. “You mustn’t force yourself to go hungry.”  
This, spoken above a whisper, was enough to wake the dragons who immediately rebuked the hatchling. “It’ll be all your fault if you remain stunted forever,” Izkierka huffed. Temeraire had already raced away to fetch one of the cows. Blink quailed before them. “I didn’t want to bother you,” he said in what was almost a mumble.   
“Bother us?” Granby, the deepest sleeper, had finally awakened. “You daft little creature, we want to be bothered.”  
But when Temeraire set the cow down (stunned and awaiting Blink’s finishing blow) the hatchling did not spring forward right away. “But aren’t cows expensive?” he asked.  
Immortalis picked Blink up and dropped him on top of the bovine. “Eat.”  
Temeraire lectured him while he ate. “The only responsibilities a hatchling has are to eat and sleep, why you insist on shirking such duties is beyond my understanding. They are among the most deeply seated instincts of our kind. Are you broken in some way?”  
“Hush, you great brute,” Granby said. “He is only trying to be considerate.”  
“And how is it considerate if he remains a wee stunted beast? So that all who see him should say, ‘that is Temeraire’s get, that weak and spineless creature.’”  
Laurence slapped his dragon’s side. “Temeraire!”   
Blink was a miserable ball. “I’m sorry, father.”  
“Never you mind,” Little said, and wiped a gob of meat from the corner of the dragon’s mouth. “It was a mistake. One you won’t make again. No one is angry.”  
But still, Blink had to be coaxed back into eating, and coaxed further into sleep. He was still mumbling apologies when he finally drifted off.  
“Jesus H. Christ, how did we get stuck with the only polite dragon in existence?” Granby asked.  
“I blame Laurence,” Little said.  
Instead of rushing to his defense, Tharkay smiled. “You are a bit excessive.”  
They devised a shift rotation so that one of them would be awake at all times. Tharkay, who needed the least sleep, volunteered for the first shift. He pushed Laurence back into his blankets and urged him to close his eyes. Laurence did, but he didn’t sleep. Something was niggling at him. He opened his eyes again and looked to Tharkay. His partner had Blink’s head in his lap again. Apple was by his knees. But he was looking toward Little and Granby, thinking, no doubt, about what had been said earlier. I am yours! Laurence wanted to shout. I’ll never leave you. My heart is yours forever. But he remained silent and just watched Tharkay watching the others. It was a long while before he fell asleep.  
He woke again to find Blink scarfing down a large tuna. Granby was reading aloud a sordid romance to the dragons and having a rollicking good time of it.  
“But why would he rip her dress?” Izkierka asked. “Are humans really so clumsy during mating? I shouldn’t have liked to have my dress ripped.”  
“Humans are all about the illusion of danger,” Granby explained. “Augustine wouldn’t hurt a fly, but once he popped two buttons off my uniform and I swear I still can’t think about it without getting goosebumps all over my body.”  
“You,” Laurence said, as he rolled over onto his back, “are a ridiculous man.”  
Granby turned the page. “A ridiculous man you love.”  
“Yes.”  
Granby looked up. His smile slipped. They’d been teasing each other but Laurence had changed that. Again. Well, in for a penny in for a pound. “Come here,” he said.  
Granby set down his book, looking nervous. Temeraire, who had been scratching notes into his sand table, was looking on curiously. Laurence patted the spot beside him on the blanket. Granby sat down on the very edge of it. Not good enough. Laurence gave his arm a yank. Granby fell over onto him with a yelp. He tried to roll off, but Laurence let him go no further than his side. He wrapped an arm around his waist. “Where is my Tenzing?”  
“Upstairs. Napping.” The staccato rhythm of the words was nothing like Granby’s usual mode of address. “Shall I fetch him for you?”  
Laurence curled his fingers around Granby’s belt. “Let him sleep.”  
His friend’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Laurence….”  
“Yes, John?”  
“What are you doing?”  
“I’m thinking about Augustine’s omelets. Is he making breakfast? Or did yesterday kill his cooking urge for a while?”  
Granby would not be deterred. “I mean now. With me.”  
“I’m holding you.”  
“Right. Um. Why?”  
“Because I want to.”  
That baffled Granby. His eyebrows shot right up. Laurence laughed. “Augustine is right. You make people happy just to be around you.”  
Granby tried again to disentangle himself, and this time Laurence let him. “I don’t understand. Why are you--you know how I feel about you.”  
“Yes.”  
“Did Augustine--did he put you up to this?”  
“No.”  
Granby hugged himself. Laurence frowned. If his friend was upset, he was doing this wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t being transparent enough. He took one of Granby’s hands, pulled it up to his mouth, and kissed it. His friend went white, jerked his hand away, and fled. Laurence was left behind, a bit deflated.  
“I’m with Granby, here,” Temeraire said. “What are you doing, Laurence?”  
“I’m trying to court him.”  
“Oh,” Temeraire said, and then he turned to Izkierka. “I guess you were right.”  
Izkierka was still bent over the book, eyeing it with one eye shut as if that would unwrap the mysteries of human romance. “Of course I was right. When am I ever wrong?”  
Laurence shot Temeraire a look before he could open his mouth and start listing examples. “Izkierka, dear, perhaps you can help me.”  
“And why should I want to help you?”  
Temeraire hissed. Laurence shot him another look.   
“Because I want to try to make John happy. What do you suppose I should do?”  
Izkierka raised her head. The topic had finally become more interesting than the book. She flicked her tail. “Maybe I don’t want you near Granby. You make him cry.”  
“Not always,” Laurence said. “Not often.”  
“Little makes him cry too,” Temeraire pointed out.  
“My dearest heart, you’re not helping.”  
Izkierka flicked her tail again. “Granby waited a long time for you, but he has Little now. And you already have a nestmate. Do you plan to send Tharkay away?”  
Every cell in Laurence’s body rebelled against the idea. He might have bared his teeth. It was Izkierka--she brought out the animal in you. “No.”  
“Then there’s nothing to talk to you about. Granby is no plaything. If you won’t take him as a nestmate, you mayn’t take him at all.”  
“I never planned to take anything from him.”  
“But you already have. Years, you’ve taken. Sometimes, I think, he wishes he had never met you.”  
It was a blow. He would not pretend otherwise, but neither would he pretend it was news to him. “What if I could fix it?” The words tossed him suddenly back into the past, back to that moment when he was making drunken protests in Granby’s kitchen. You can’t fix an invert, Will. Had Granby wanted to fix himself before? Had he wanted to rid himself of his feelings for Laurence? It was not to be born. Granby’s feelings were precious to him. He wished he had known about them sooner. Had known about everyone’s feelings sooner. Why was he so bad in these situations and why was the news so slow to come to him? Jane had made things easy. She’d taken all action into her capable hands and steered Laurence along. But no one in the family, save Izkierka, was cut in that mold. He had grown spoiled and complacent. He would have to spend more time planning so he wouldn’t cause more damage than he had already.   
He went to Blink, who was drowsing over a dwindling pile of fish, and hugged him. “I will fix it,” he swore.  
“Okay,” Blink murmured. Perhaps he was already asleep. “Thank you for the fish.”  
Laurence put Temeraire in charge of Blink and went back into the house. Little was by the stove cooking, not only omelets, but sausage as well. He was singing folk songs to Apple, who was in her basket on the table. Laurence snuck a bit of sausage from the pan and pressed a kiss to the man’s cheek in payment. Little blinked his surprise. Laurence smiled at him. “Where is he?”  
Little raised a hand to his cheek as if to check that it was still there. “Upstairs. He seemed upset. Wouldn’t say a word to me. What did you do?”  
“Nothing,” Laurence said. “Yet.” He took the stairs two at a time. Granby was lying on the bed, staring into Tharkay’s sleeping face. Tharkay blinked his eyes open at the sound of the door. “Will?” and then, when his eyes focused on the person beside him. “John?”  
Laurence climbed up onto the bed and snagged Granby before he could jump ship. “I don’t think your dragon likes me.”  
“I don’t think--of course she likes you.”  
Laurence rolled atop Granby and pinned his wrists above his head. “She says I mayn’t have you.”  
Granby went white. Tharkay sat up. “I can leave.”  
“No,” both Granby and Laurence said at once. Well, Laurence said it. Granby shouted it.   
Laurence leaned down and nudged at the side of Granby’s face with his nose. The little hairs on his friend’s neck were standing up. Granby’s breath was coming fast but he was also utterly still. Afraid to move? Laurence didn’t know. He decided to ask.  
“Are you afraid of me, John?”  
“I don’t know what you’re doing.”  
“No?”  
Granby’s laugh was a nervous sputter. “Okay. I don’t know why you’re doing it. Is this...is this for Tharkay?”  
“I’m no voyeur,” Tharkay huffed. Laurence turned his head and winked at his nestmate. “Aren’t you?” He had been hovering over Granby, now he pushed his hips down to meet him and was rewarded by a stifled groan. Even without sound, Granby’s arousal was obvious. It was strange how, technically, he had known of Granny's feelings, but this was his first indisputable proof of it. He waited for the panic to hit him. Waited for revulsion to strike. But it didn’t come, instead there was the thrumming satisfaction that came from being found desirable. Laurence reached for Tharkay and pulled him in for a kiss. It was nothing like those first chaste kisses they had shared. Tharkay was breathing in short uneven spurts by the time he pulled away.  
“That’s for torturing me last night,” Laurence said.   
He turned his attention back to Granby who looked like his heart might stop at any moment. He brushed his thumb over his friend’s lips. “I need to go have another talk with Augustine about you, lovely creature.”  
He rolled off the bed, apologized to Tharkay for waking him, and went back downstairs. Little was plating breakfast. “Are the others coming down?”  
Laurence only smiled and went to fetch the kettle. Five minutes later a timid looking Granby and a nonplussed Tharkay came down the stairs. Little’s mouth fell open when he saw Tharkay still wearing his nightshirt. He never came down before he was fully dressed. Laurence just smiled at him and took another sip of tea. He should have known better.   
Tharkay’s face smoothed out. All his agitation faded away, and he went still. “Augustine, John, my apologies. I'm about to do something rude.”  
It was the only warning Laurence got. He didn’t even have time to set down his mug. Tharkay pulled his chair away from the table, nudged his legs open, and knelt between them.  
“Tenzing, what are you--”  
But he didn’t need anyone to tell him. He knew, and he was already reacting. He sloshed tea onto his chest as Tharkay pulled him out of his pants and took him into his mouth. Someone took the tea from him. Tenzing. He reached up and plucked it from his hands without removing his mouth. Laurence didn’t ponder the logistics of that. He was only aware that his hands were now free and he tangled them up in waves of silky black hair, but he didn’t try to pull Tharkay off. He had never had that kind of control. Still, some awareness remained. He knew Little and Granby were there. He knew it, but it couldn’t change what was happening. He didn’t even much want to change what was happening. His eyes found Granby--sweet, blushing, and overwhelmed--how would he react were Granby in his place? What would the man look like, cresting with pleasure, pinned by his eyes? His head fell back against the chair and his hands tightened in Tharkay’s hair. “Tenzing--you--ah--shouldn’t--Tenzing.” Red spots of light blossomed in his vision, his jaw clenched tight, and he was flying, soaring, crashing with pleasure.  
Tharkay set him to rights, retrieved the mug of tea, and took it with him back upstairs. Laurence was left there, blinking away the spots in his eyes, out of breath and out of sorts. Little looked like a puff of air would knock him over. He had a triangle of toast in his hand. It had been dangling there for some minutes. Granby looked more alive, but very red, and breathing like he had just done a sprint. “Um, excuse me,” Laurence said. “I have to…”  
He twisted out of his seat and followed Tharkay up the stairs. When he pushed open the door to their room he saw no one. He started to turn around and was pushed toward the bed.   
“Tenzing--”  
“I’m going to fuck you, Will.” The words were crisp, even, totally in control. He shoved at Laurence’s chest until his back met the mattress, but Tharkay wouldn’t come down beside him. “Remove your clothes.”  
Laurence’s hands jumped to obey. He didn’t dare question the Tharkay who used that tone. He was pulling his shirt over his head when he noticed the small pot of cream in Tharkay’s hands. He had seen a similar looking pot in Little’s nightstand. He felt his whole body flare hot. “Tenzing…”  
“Your clothes. All of them.”  
Laurence let his shirt drop to the floor and reached for his pants. He watched Tharkay set the small pot down on the bedspread. “We don’t have to do this, Tenzing. We don’t ever have to do this, if you don’t wish it.”  
Tharkay reached back and pulled the nightshirt over his head. Like always, Laurence felt his brain stutter as he took in Tharkay’s body. How could a living creature be fitted together so perfectly? He was just a man. It shouldn’t have been possible.  
“You’re taking too long.”  
Tharkay gave Laurence’s pants a yank that slid them down to his ankles. He dropped them on the floor beside the shirt and straddled his waist.  
“Do you truly want this, or are you only doing it in reaction to Granby? Talk to me, Tenzing. I know you’ve never--”  
“Neither have you.”  
It was true that Laurence had never penetrated, and had never been penetrated, by a man, but he was not like Tharkay who had confessed an aversion to it. There was no childhood trauma, no bad experience that had marred things for him. Tharkay was simply a very clean individual who disliked vulnerability. He had, about a week into their sleeping together, sat Laurence down and told him this. Laurence hadn’t much cared. At that point he’d been manic on an endless stream of pheromones and had assured his partner that they would have an excellent time regardless, and he still maintained that position, however, once things had calmed down he thought, sometimes, that it was a shame that he could not make Tharkay comfortable enough even to try.  
But this, well, this wasn’t anything like what he’d had in mind.  
“Tenzing.”  
“You have to relax. I’ve heard that it only feels good if you relax.”  
Laurence wasn’t tense because he was nervous about being poked in the ass. Jane had been...unorthodox and experimental. He was no stranger to a finger or three wriggling around inside of him. He was nervous because he was worried he’d completely misinterpreted his partner.  
“My love, I thought--forgive me, Tenzing, I’m a fool, but I thought that you were encouraging--that you wanted me and John to--” He broke off with a gasp as Tharkay pushed two oil-slicked fingers into him. It had been a long time since he had experienced such a thing, and he needed a moment to grow accustomed to it. But Tharkay didn’t give him a moment. He drew his fingers back and plunged them into him again, deeper. Laurence felt the air punch out of him. There was no pain. It didn’t even feel like invasion. Not truly. But he wanted to experience this the right way. He would not feel pleasure until he could ascertain that this was what Tharkay wanted--really wanted.  
“Tenzing, my body is yours, however you want it, but you need not force yourself to--”  
“Did you not imagine taking Granby this way?”  
Tharkay let him see something in his face then. Or perhaps it was involuntary. Tharkay was in pain. Laurence lunged upwards and wrapped his lover up in his arms. It was a bit awkward with Tharkay’s fingers still plugging him up, but that didn’t matter. “You were the one who taught me that love cannot take away from love. Tenzing, I love you, and I will be content to love only you if that’s what you wish. But you must first tell me exactly how you plan to cut John and Augustine from our lives because I cannot fathom how we can begin to...How we can--” It was no good. Once again words had failed him. What had he expected to say? What had he expected to do? “I thought, perhaps, we might bind ourselves together a little tighter. I wanted…”  
Tenzing pulled back. His fingers came free and he sat up, but it was not a rejection, and when Laurence saw his face he felt the tension leak out of him like a deflating air sac. “You were encouraging me. I didn’t misinterpret. You wanted--”  
“Yes.”  
“So then why did you…” He didn’t know what to call what had happened downstairs.  
Tharkay smiled. He had a dimple, very slight, in his left cheek. But it only appeared when he smiled. “Are you the only one with permission to act like a fool?”  
Laurence tried to kiss him, but Tharkay kept him back. “Wait. I need to tell you--I have something to confess.”  
Laurence settled his hands on Tharkay’s waist and waited, but Tharkay didn’t speak. Laurence waited some more but all Tharkay did was close his eyes.  
“My love?”  
Tharkay hissed something under his breath. “I’m nothing like you, Will. I’m a coward.”  
“Slander,” Laurence said. “I’ve never known a braver man than you. Well. Perhaps Granby, but that’s bravery to the point of foolhardiness. Between you and me, I think that sometimes he forgets he’s mortal.”  
Tharkay didn’t laugh. He took Laurence’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “You must promise not to think ill of me. I know it’s unfair to make you promise before I speak, but I don’t think I could bear it if I lost your regard.”  
Laurence straightened his back and tried to pull Tharkay in again, but he wouldn’t come. “Tenzing, I promise. Of course I do. There’s nothing in the world that could make me lose my regard for you. I’m certain.”  
Still, Tharkay hesitated, and finally, finally Laurence understood. The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place, and it was once again so obvious he couldn’t imagine how he had never seen it. “Augustine,” he said. “It’s Augustine."


	7. Augustine

Tharkay went pale--so pale Laurence feared he might faint. “My love,” he said, unable to hide his alarm. “Let me fetch you a touch of brandy. At the very least, some water.”  
But Tharkay shook his head. “No. I don’t need...are you not angry?”  
“Angry? At you? To what purpose? It’s no wonder he’s fallen in love with you. I’m only shocked that the entire world isn’t similarly afflicted.”  
“I had hoped to tell you...what?” If anything, Tharkay went even paler. “What did you say?”  
Laurence was afraid to speak. He thought he’d been giving assurances, but the more he spoke the worse Tharkay seemed to get. “My dear Tenzing, are you certain I cannot fetch you anything? You’re as white as the sheets.”  
“But Augustine isn’t--I thought it was I who--always John has been the only one he...”  
Tharkay was still dreadfully pale, but he would recover. Yes. He would certainly recover. Because, with dawning wonder, Laurence realized that he hadn’t--not quite--understood. But he had the whole of it now. He had it, and the whole picture delighted him so much that he couldn’t help but throw back his head and laugh. “Oh, Tenzing, how sweet it is to tell you how wrong you are. My dearest man, I never dreamed that you would be blind to--but I suppose we are all blind now and again. No, my Tenzing, you are not alone in this. Augustine loves you. He loves you as I love you. As he loves John. He certainly, most ardently loves you, and I’m sure that John figured it out a long time ago.”  
This time, when he tried to kiss Tharkay, he was not rebuffed, but mostly, he thought, because his partner was too stunned to move. He kissed his hands next and pushed the hair out of his face. “Tenzing? I didn't mean to shock you. Some part of you must have known this, yes? I have never seen him act the way he does with you to any of his other friends. He’s known Chenery since he was a boy and yet I would never confuse that with what you two share. Tenzing, My Tenzing, I’m sorry I didn’t understand before. Have you been suffering long?” And then a dreadful, most awful, thought occurred to him. “Tenzing.” Truly, he was horrified. “You did not think--you could not have possibly thought--that I would hate you for this?”  
A sound, finally a sound, left Tharkay’s throat. But it wasn’t a good sound. It was too much like an aborted sob. “Tenzing! By god--no. Never. Not ever, Tenzing, do you hear me? You must listen to me. Listen and remember this. There is not anything in this world that could make me--and after all that you’ve done for me. All the things you’ve seen and accepted of me. To think you’d believe such low ingratitude of me. Really, Tenzing. I should be insulted, but I am too relieved. I’m all over relief. But by the good book, Tenzing, I would be the mother of all hypocrites, a true bastard, if I thought I should have John while you--and you certainly must have Augustine. You must. Right this minute.”  
But perhaps not that very minute, because Tharkay still looked like he would keel over. Laurence tucked some more hair behind Tharkay’s ears. It wasn’t really in the way, but he wanted to feel like he was helping, somehow. “Tenzing? Please say something. Would you like me to fetch someone else? Perhaps Augustine can--?”  
Tharkay went rigid and shook his head, a wild negation. “No--no I cannot face him. Not now. Not after I just…”  
Laurence shouldn’t have smiled. It was wicked of him to smile. But he couldn’t help it. He was thinking of Little’s face and that dangling bit of toast. “My dear, if you had not caught him already, I think that little stunt would have sealed it.”  
Tharkay pressed a hand over his mouth. But he was not horrified. No. It was something else. “Do you really think--is it not just wishful thinking on my part that he would…”  
Laurence took hold of Tharkay’s shoulders and stared him in the face. “He is, most truly and definitely, in love with you, Tenzing. I know it. I recognize it. I see my own feelings for you reflected in his eyes whenever he looks at you.”  
Tharkay wasn’t ready to hear it. “John.”  
“Don’t worry. I don’t think your show did him any harm either.”  
“Be serious, Will! What have I done? To him, to you? Tell me right now, Will, and if you lie, I shall know it. Tell me right now what I must do to win back your trust.”  
“My trust? But how can you win back what was never lost?”  
“Will!”  
“It’s the truth. You know I’d never dare lie to you. You’re far too frightening. Truly, Tenzing. Ask Temeraire if you must. Ask him if this would be the sort of thing that would bother me.”  
“But it must bother you.”  
“Why? You’re the one who taught me to be open. Unless this is your way of telling me that you have transferred your feelings for me to Augustine instead?”  
Tharkay’s look of horror was answer enough. Laurence laughed. “Then why should I be upset? Naturally, if Augustine were to hurt you, well, even Immortalis would not be enough to stop me from beating him to a pulp.”  
Tharkay’s smile was small, but it was there. “Did you learn nothing from Stanley?”  
“Was that the poor sod Immortalis turned into a pancake?”  
Tharkay hugged him. Laurence put all his energy into hugging him back.  
“I didn’t know that I would feel so...I feel lighter than I have in...oh, since the day you pulled me from that damn ship. You cannot imagine how good it is to have you, Will.”  
“Well, if it is anything like having you, then I do, in fact, have a vague notion…”  
Tharkay laughed. And then he kissed Laurence. And then he laughed again. And kissed Laurence again. Each on their own, laughter and kisses, were potent forces, together they were deadly. Now Laurence was the one who needed the brandy. “My dear…” he said, but he couldn’t remember what he wanted to ask. This was happiness. It was not often that people recognized it as it was happening. It was much easier to look back on certain memories and go “yes, I was happy then.” But Laurence recognized it now. Recognized it, and thrilled in it.   
When Tharkay pushed against his chest, Laurence went over like a hollow shell. Tharkay laughed again--the best sound in the world--and climbed atop him. “Will you let me? Will you really let me?”  
Laurence thought he was still talking about Augustine and nodded--and kept nodding. If there was anyone who deserved happiness it was his dear Tenzing. Perhaps finally in this he could make up for a little of the man’s sacrifice. All those years of chasing him around the world. Could this really be a chance to give back? It seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was. He feared hurt. Would his heart be jealous? He didn’t want it to be. Was this what Tharkay felt about him and Granby? Poor Tharkay. Suffering of love in all directions. He would most certainly be consulting Little about how to best make him happy. Yes. Little would help him. The thought was a relief. And he found himself mirroring Tharkay’s laugh, that is, until Tharkay’s fingers found his opening again, and suddenly the laughter was desire.   
“Tenzing.”  
The fingers had not pushed into him like before. No. They lingered there. Asking permission. “I do want this, Will. I have for some time, but I didn’t know how to ask it of you. I thought that maybe we could--”  
“Yes.”  
“If you find it distasteful you must tell me at once. And if it hurts--”  
“Tenzing. I want you inside me. Now. Right now.”  
Whatever color Tharkay had lost he gained back double. “You must promise to tell me if it hurts, and you must guide me. I want it to be good for you. And if I find out you only agreed because I wanted to--”  
Laurence grabbed hold of Tharkay’s manhood and hissed, “If you don't put this to use I'll do it myself.”  
Tharkay choked on his surprise, but since he was still Tharkay, he recovered quickly. He slicked his hands again, settled Laurence so that he was comfortable, and used his fingers to enter him again.  
This time Laurence closed his eyes and revelled in the feeling. “Tenzing.”  
Tharkay could not go fast enough for him. Within moments he was begging for more, another finger, more than fingers. He didn’t care what he sounded like, or how he might appear. Tharkay listened, gave him what he wanted, but not soon enough. Not enough to prevent the frantic mounting of his desire. “Tenzing. Hurry. I need--” His groan, when Tharkay finally pushed into him, a long slow slide, came from the deepest parts of him. Tharkay, too, was affected.   
“Will.”  
Laurence hooked his leg around Tharkay to pull him closer, deeper, but still Tharkay did not move. He stayed like that, panting, teeth gritted. “Move,” Laurence commanded him. “Please, Tenzing.”  
And Tharkay did move, and when he did, Laurence wasn’t ready, but only because there was no way to prepare himself. He felt laid open, stripped bare, as if Tharkay might look at him and see every thought he’d ever had. And some of those thoughts shamed him. But still he was forced to look into Tharkay’s eyes and let him see all those shameful thoughts, all his moments of weakness, his pettiness, the deepest most cowardly fears in his heart.  
Tharkay pulled him forward and kissed him. He saw into Laurence and still he kissed him and kissed him, their mating a slow, relentless thing. Laurence clung to him, pressed his face into his shoulder, kissed him again, called his name, and all the while Tharkay was moving inside of him, rearranging things, putting pieces into place. Augustine cannot take this away from us Laurence thought. Another thing to add to the shameful and cowardly pile, but still the thought comforted him. Whatever happened, he would still have this moment. Still have the feeling of Tharkay moving inside of him and looking at him with eyes so deep with love that it didn’t seem possible that it could ever drain away.  
“I love you,” Laurence said, and he didn’t need to hear it back. “I love you so much.”

They did, eventually, have to go back downstairs. Laurence was looking forward to it. He lay beside Tharkay, naked and spent, and couldn’t stop suggesting it. “We should go down like this. If Augustine could gape that much from the sight of you in a nightshirt, imagine how much better it would be if--”  
“Are you certain you aren’t in any pain?”  
Laurence stretched. His joints felt like they had gone to jelly, and his opening felt used. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was somewhat like how muscles felt after a good day’s labor. “Only from where you bit me.”  
Tharkay flushed. He hadn’t, in fact bitten Laurence, but his teeth had, quite by accident scraped against his shoulder. Laurence loved it, and he would love teasing Tharkay about it even more. “I’m going to start calling you the dragon.”  
“You’ll do no such thing. Not least because of how confusing it would be in a house with four of the creatures.”  
Four. That was right. They had Blink. He bolted up. “Do you think he’s woken up again?”  
Tharkay smiled. “Forget John, it’s that hatchling I’m jealous of. Temeraire is going to be furious with you.”  
“Temeraire is so in love himself he will hardly notice if I’m a tad overly fond.” He kissed Tharkay and then kissed him again. It didn’t seem possible to pull away, he certainly couldn’t, but Tharkay was made of stronger stuff and eventually shoved him off. “Come. I won’t be cowed in my own house.”  
Laurence clapped him on the shoulder, delighted. It wasn’t often that he got to see Tharkay take that kind of tone. He watched his partner dress and had to be reminded, several times, to follow suit.  
“Don’t be alarmed, my love, but I think you may have grown even more beautiful. It might not be safe for the others to see you. Augustine will surely go mad.”  
Tharkay adjusted his collar. “If you’re going to be this full of nonsense every time I fuck you I’m not sure I’m going to do it again.”  
It was the worst bluff his partner had ever made. Laurence smiled. “A pity. Was I not good for you, my dear?”  
Tharkay softened. He came forward and kissed Laurence on the top of the head. “Very good. The best.”  
“You say that, but you’ve not had Augustine yet.”  
Tharkay made a face at him. Something he’d never done before. Laurence laughed so hard he broke out in a fit of coughing. Tharkay poured him a glass of water from the jug on the side table. He had quite recovered his composure and was once again an impenetrable wall of capability. Laurence tried to kiss his hand but was forced to do up the rest of his shirt buttons instead.  
When they descended the stairs, they found Little and Granby still sitting by the table, talking to each other in urgent whispers. Little was holding Apple and Granby was gripping his mug with white knuckles. When they heard feet on the stairs they leapt up and started babbling apologies.  
“If it was my words last night that caused this rift between you,” Little began, “I beg your indulgence. by no means could I intend--” but his words were overlaid by an the even greater agitation of Granby who cut in with, “Tenzing, you must believe me, never would I presume to take Laurence’s attentions from you. I know I should have stopped him this morning, but in my surprise I’m afraid I--. That isn’t to say that I think I could take Laurence from you, since we all know how wild he is about--that is to say--even if he wasn’t--and he is--Laurence is too loyal ever to--but that is not the only reason of course. And you’re too clever to let someone come between you. But that sounds like I’m calling you conniving. I’m not. I’m--bother on it all--I’m sorry, Tenzing, and to you as well, Will, whatever I’ve done I hope that you--”  
“Please, John, take a breath before you pass out,” Tharkay said. He cleared the rest of the steps, went right to Granby, and pulled him into an embrace. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing. Haven’t I told you, many times, how glad I am that he has you?”  
Granby was too wired to find relief yet. His agitation was so great he was shaking. “I can go. I won’t ruin--only please don’t take Apple from Augustine. You can’t. He loves her so very much.” And burst into tears.  
Laurence caught up Granby as the man sank to his knees. Tharkay and Laurence sank with him, gentling the fall so that their friend wouldn’t crack his shins against the tile.   
“I would never,” Tharkay hissed. “Even had you deliberately seduced Will, which you haven’t, why on earth would I punish Augustine and Apple for it? Silly man. Why are you crying? Don’t you know how beloved you are?”  
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Granby bawled.   
Laurence found Apple pushed into his arms as a lovestruck Little gathered up his partner. “Captain John Granby do not dare tell me it was my fatherhood that had you most worried just now.”  
Granby was still crying as he muttered, “Fine, I won’t tell you then.”  
Little seized Granby by the chin and said, “You angelic fool. Even if I lived as long as a dragon, I could not love you half as much as you deserve” and kissed him.  
“Amazing,” Laurence said, when, after multiple kisses, Granby was still crying. “What is it going to take to make you stop?” He looked to Augustine. “Should I give it a go?”  
Granby reacted like someone had just threatened Little with bodily harm. He shoved his partner behind him and shook like a leaf. Tharkay bit down on his smile. “I assure you, John, it isn’t Will you have to protect Augustine from.”  
It was hardly a confession, but it was obviously more than he had ever let on before, because Little’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates, and even Granby faltered. It was calculated, Laurence realized. Tharkay knew that the thing that could always bring Granby back to himself fastest was good news for Augustine. He had mustered up his courage for the sole purpose of bringing relief to his friend and Laurence was quite of one mind with Little because he would not ever, not even if he spent every remaining moment on earth thinking of Tharkay, love and appreciate him as was his due.  
“No,” Granby whispered. “No way. It’s not possible.”  
Subtle patches of pink appeared on Tharkay’s cheeks. He nodded.  
Granby’s whoop was loud enough to set Apple to howling, but nobody yelled at him--especially not Augustine, who was usually the one most sensitive to these things. He was too clearly overcome. A pleasure in itself to see for how rarely it happened. Laurence felt that boyhood mischief rising in him again. The desire to tease was too strong to endure. “Oh I see how it is. Tenzing reveals his feelings and gets the adulation of a returning war hero, but I finally try to express myself--something all of you have been encouraging me to do for ages--and suddenly I’m this great big threat who causes babies to be ripped from their fathers.”  
Granby laughed. There were still tears on his face. But the biggest reaction came from an unexpected corner. Little seized Laurence by the front of the shirt, blurted, “You beautiful bastard” and kissed him full on the mouth. Little’s lips, he decided, amongst all of his confusion, were softer than Granby’s. But this categorization didn’t help him much, and he was still owl-eyed and gaping when Little pulled back. Little clapped him on the face and pulled on his ear (an affectionate gesture he had only seen him use on Granby until now) “Don’t you see? Tenzing would never, not ever, have said anything of the sort had you not already--had he not been certain that you would--Damn it all! I suppose I shall now have to be as generous as you.”  
Laurence understood. At least, he thought he did, except for--”I thought you already gave me your permission last night.”  
Granby, who had been hooting and carrying on--shut up just long enough to be astonished again. “What?”  
Little sighed. “Yes, yes, go fuck your blonde, though I hate that you called it permission. I’m not John’s jailor.”  
Tharkay laughed and Little was so startled by the sound that any and all gruffness fell away from his face and he suddenly became painfully and adorably shy. Laurence had lifted Apple up to his shoulder and was bouncing her up and down to get her to calm, but now he shoved Little in the back and said, “What do John and I have to do? Glue your mouths together?”  
Little only blinked at him. Luckily Granby cottoned on.  
“Can’t you see he’s dying for it? Kiss him, you great booby!”  
But it was Tharkay who took the reins. He jerked his eyes to Laurence, still scared of unbalancing the precious happiness he had won himself. “Do it,” Laurence mouthed, smiling as he did. And Tharkay did. Oh how he did. He pulled Little towards him with both hands fisted in his jacket and kissed him like he was trying to tug free the secrets of the universe.  
Granby whooped loud enough to shake the rafters. Laurence found himself reaching out for support, anything to hold onto, not because he was upset, but because he was sure, quite sure, that he had actually done it. Fixed it. He had kept his promise and Blink would have a wonderful family after all. He was so happy he could weep. Granby must have seen it because he interrupted his cackling to take his arm and say, “Why, Laurence…” He didn’t get any farther than that. Laurence pulled him into a tight embrace and buried his face in his friend’s shoulder. I didn’t ruin it. The thought kept running through his mind, over and over, bringing with it full trembling relief every time. I didn’t ruin it after all.


	8. Unripe

“Are you sure you’re quite all right?” Little asked him for the fourth time. They were all sprawled about the pavilion. Blink was gnawing on some bones. Temeraire had offered to go hunting again, but Blink had assured him he was too full to eat anymore, he just liked the flavor.  
“You look like a dog when you do that,” Immortalis had said. He was the only one who wasn’t head over heels in love with the hatchling. He wasn’t good at sharing his captain’s attention. He’d accepted Granby, and even Apple out of love for Little, but asking him to give yet more of his captain’s heart to a dragon no larger than a cow? He didn’t see it as fair. Little was trying to assuage the creature by being more hands on than usual. He was polishing his dragon as he spoke to Laurence.  
“Certainly, I’m sure," Laurence answered.  
And he was. His main worry now was wondering how Immortalis would react to the news that his captain was taking another mate. They had yet to tell the dragons anything--mostly because they needed to know what was happening before they could tell it over. Everyone was a little shy and off-kilter. Granby kept looking at Little with big puppy eyes and Tharkay kept touching Laurence’s elbow and saying nothing. He figured Little would be focused on either Tharkay or Granby, but no, it was Laurence he was concerned for, and kept asking after his health.  
He’d been confused at first, but Granby had whispered an explanation to him. “Everyone else has been long accustomed to the other’s feelings, but Tharkay told him you only figured it all out today. He thinks you’re in shock.” Perhaps he was a bit in shock, but it wasn’t a bad surprise. Mostly he felt relieved that he could make sense of everything around him. The biggest changes in comprehension had come with Little. No wonder the man had been angry at him, Not only had it looked like he was trying to steal Granby, but it looked like he was cheating on Little’s other great love to do it. All year long he’d been torn between wanting to make Granby happy and wanting to protect Tharkay. He’d also thought Apple was dying and had to think of his dragon’s anxieties. No wonder the man had been stressed. Not only did knowing this increase his sympathy for Little, but it built his admiration too. He hadn’t realized just how big of an ally he had in Little. They treasured the same people, and he knew that, like himself, Little would do anything to protect them. He wouldn’t be worried about laws or danger. He’d take care of them all, and now, it seemed, that bubble of protection extended to Laurence as well. He found out just how much a few minutes later when he followed Little in to help prepare lunch, but first he had to change Apple’s diaper and then go in search of Laila for a feeding. When he came back he found Little hard at work.  
“The tomatoes are under ripe,” Little said as soon as he heard Laurence in the door. Little was probably the most talented person Laurence knew, so it was a shame that he felt so insecure about his achievements. If any of the ingredients were even a little off Little would have anxiety. He didn’t want to serve his family bad food. It was sweet, but it was also a pity. The insecurities meant Little also hated to show his artwork to people (save for the quick sketches he didn’t care about) and forget his writing. Granby said the man had finished six novels and no one had ever been allowed to read any of them. Apparently Little had read the first couple aloud to Immortalis when he was younger, but he had sworn the dragon to secrecy.  
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Laurence said. He came up behind Little and rested a hand on his hip. He was exploring the man’s newfound tolerance for him. Call him childish, but he wanted to see how much he could get away with. So far it seemed that the appreciation over accepting his feelings for Tharkay was pretty much buying Laurence immunity to everything. He reached open and snagged a slice of tomato. It was firm, but not untasty. Cooking would certainly make it all right. “You have to stop worrying about things like this,” he said as he snagged a second slice. “If anything of yours turned out poorly we’d sooner assume direct intervention from god than anything you might have done to--”  
Laurence choked.  
He never spoke with his mouth full. Never. And on this, possibly his first offence ever, he choked. Was actively choking. The sensation was so new, so paralyzing, that at first he could do nothing but wonder at how it could be. He had been drawing breath, talking, and suddenly there was this terrible pressure and he couldn’t breathe.  
He couldn’t breathe.  
His hand jumped to his throat. It still felt smooth, as if nothing was wrong. But he couldn’t get any air, not even enough to cough.  
“Laurence!”  
Little, incredible man that he was, had recognized the situation before Laurence had fully taken it in himself. It was what Little did next that fully brought the danger home to him. Little was a soft-spoken man, a man of courtesy. He never talked over anyone, and rarely dropped coarse language. But now Little inhaled deep into his lungs, twisted toward the door, and, at the top of his lungs, roared, “TEMERAIRE!”  
Even choking (and possibly dying) Laurence didn’t fail to take note of the anomaly. His body was slack with surprise so that when Little bent him over and started hitting his back, his pliant body went along with exactly what he was doing. But it was no good. The (unripe) tomato was lodged tight. Little pulled him back up and mashed at his chest. He used terrible force, enough to bruise his ribs, but that too wasn’t enough. Laurence was starting to feel dizzy, but then, when a bit of black was starting to creep in towards the edges of his vision, a familiar black talon punched right through the door and ripped the thing clear off its hinges.  
Laurence flinched but Little showed no surprise. He was already dragging Laurence outside. “Quick, Temeraire! He chokes. He can’t breathe!”  
Temeraire’s eyes rounded out until they were ringed by nothing but white. “Laurence! What do I--What do I do? Little! What do I do?”  
“Pull him upside down. Now!”  
Temeraire rushed to do as he was told. Laurence left the ground and spun crazily through the air.  
“Give him a shake!”  
But several rough shakes did nothing but make him even more ill. Fainting was imminent. In a minute or two he would be dead. It didn’t seem possible. Years and years of battles, near execution, and man-eating Australian slugs hadn’t been enough to do him in. But he would die on a tomato of all things. He was just glad his father wasn’t alive to hear about it. He’d always been a disappointment to him, but at least he hadn’t been an embarrassment.  
He couldn’t think about the others. Couldn’t think about Tharkay. Couldn’t think about Temeraire. Couldn’t think about Granby. No. But he was thinking about them. How could he not? He didn’t want to feel this regret. Why were all his most beautiful memories being used to compound those regrets? But still, he was grateful, so damn grateful, for all they had given him. He had fit a lifetime of happiness into this year of Tharkay. There had been a lot of tension, yes, and worry, and fear, but he had so loved building his family. At the very least it would not all fall apart without him. Tharkay and Little knew they loved each other. Granby would pull Tharkay right in and never resent him. And they and the other dragons would care for Temeraire. Perhaps Temeraire would partner with Tharkay. They certainly loved each other enough. Thank god they would have each other. No one would have to suffer alone. And they would have Blink and Apple. They couldn’t mourn too long if they had so much growing to celebrate. Perhaps Apple would even look like him. The others might take some comfort in that. Or perhaps it would pain them. He couldn’t influence it now. He couldn’t do anything now. His life was no longer under his control. perhaps it had never been, and that was a good thing. The family they had here was newly established, but the people in it had been connected to Laurence for a blessedly long time. He should have known he had too much happiness to last. Well. He would take his year with his family over a lifetime of being alone. With them, he had lived.  
All these thoughts and many others passed through his mind in the span of seconds, just long enough for Temeraire to realize the shaking wasn’t doing any good. A terrible sound, panic, pure and wretched, escaped his dragon’s throat. Laurence had never wanted to hear a sound like that from Temeraire. From anyone, really. But from his dragon it was heart shattering, and knowing he was the cause of it only made it worse. He hoped he would go unconscious soon. It was a selfish thought, but he couldn’t stand his dragon’s pain. It only served to remind him how much he and the others would suffer.  
“Down to me!” Little roared up at him. “Keep him like that but lower him.”  
Laurence’s stomach plunged down into his throat as he was lowered, too fast, so that he dangled only a couple of feet off the ground. Little grabbed him with a crushing grip and went back to his pounding, first his back, then his chest. On the second round, when Little was nothing more than a blur of red-faced intensity, the tomato finally popped free and fell to the earth, harmless once again.  
Laurence’s inhale burned all the way through. His eyes watered from the trauma of it all and the edges of his vision were still black. But he was alive. He could breathe.  
“He lives.” The first time Little spoke it came out a whisper, too surprised to have any volume. But he recalled himself quickly and shouted up to the frantic dragon. “He lives! He breathes!”  
“Laurence?” Temeraire’s voice was like grated metal. He jerked Laurence back up (only an entire life spent on the seas and in the air prevented him from vomiting from all the turbulence) and cradled him up to where he could see him best. “Is it true? You can breathe again?”  
Laurence nodded and tried to speak. It came out as a cough. When he tried again it sounded like he’d been inhaling smoke, shredded with irritation. “Yes.” He coughed again. “I’m alright Temeraire. I’m alright.” He tried to pat his dragon, but he was still dizzy and he sank to his knees in Temeraire’s hold.  
“Take me up!” Tharkay barked. “Take me up. Now. Take me up.”  
It was Izkierka who heard and obeyed. Temeraire was still too frantic. She dumped both Tharkay and Granby into Temeraire’s claws. Tharkay was white--even whiter than he had been earlier. But Granby was red and sobbing openly. The poor thing. It was exhausting to cry twice in one day and this time was even worse than before. Granby threw himself at Laurence and carried them both down. “Careful!” Temeraire hissed. “He is near dead!”  
But that, thankfully was a lie. Laurence was already regaining his strength. His arm snaked around Granby. The other reached out to where Tharkay was hanging back, scared. Terrified, even. His nestmate only ever showed fear when Laurence’s wellbeing was at the root of it.  
“I’m so sorry,” Laurence said. “I’m so very sorry. The scare I must have given you.”  
Granby’s relieved sobs were nearly screams. Laurence had never heard him make that sound either. Today was a day of firsts. It was a very difficult sound to hear. There was so much suffering in it. “Shh. John. My dear John. Shh. I’m alive. Truly. And there’s no permanent harm done. See? Look at me. Look at me, John. I’m alright. It’s okay.”  
But it was not okay. All he knew was that he needed to calm everyone down before they all gave themselves heart attacks. He finally clasped Tharkay’s hand in his. “I’ll be careful. I’ll be so careful in the future. My heart, can you forgive me for scaring you like this? You needn’t right now. You can be angry. I would be furious if I were you. I’m sorry. Tenzing. Temeraire. I’m so sorry. I’m horrified with myself, truly. And what a way to go. There was no way I would have let myself die. I wouldn’t be able to live down the funeral. Oh--Oh Temeraire, my dear dear creature, don’t cry. My heart will break into a thousand pieces. Please, Tharkay, go to him, I can’t” because Granby was still atop him, but Tharkay couldn’t make himself let go of Laurence either. The most he could do was stroke Temeraire’s skin with his other hand. Izkierka was entirely silent, awed by the near-loss she had witnessed. No doubt she was being reminded of the mortality of her own captain. All the dragons would be traumatized, he was sure of it, and all for a brainless, and entirely avoidable disaster.  
“Augustine,” Tharkay said in a hoarse voice when Little was finally dumped into the mess of Temeraire’s claws with the rest of them. All of them were being tossed about by all of Temerare’s trembling. It was hardly conducive to recovery, and it was one of the reasons Immortalis hadn’t wanted to give his captain up. Another was because Little was shaking like a leaf.  
“I kept thinking of what I would say to them,” he blurted. “That I had let you die. That I hadn’t been enough. I kept thinking it and I couldn’t--I couldn’t--”  
Little’s breath was coming in short, sharp gasps, and, his confession spoken, he covered his face and shook with silent tears. Tharkay pulled him into an embrace so tight there was not an inch of space anywhere between them. “You saved him.You saved his life. You saved him.”  
When Temeraire heard this, some of his trembling eased, not from recovery, but with surprise. “He’s right.” The giant dragon eye peered closer, but instead of being locked on Laurence it had switched to Little. “You saved my Laurence. You saved him when I couldn’t. You did it.”  
Little dropped his hands.”No. No, we, did it. I couldn’t save him without you. It was lodged too tight. I needed him upside down. Together, with gravity--”  
“Yes,” Temeraire agreed, “But I wouldn’t have thought of it. I wouldn’t have thought of anything. My mind was white. Empty. If you hadn’t been there--” He shuddered, and the force of it knocked them all off their feet. Immortalis yelled at Temeraire to put them down before he killed them all. Temeraire snapped at the smaller dragon, but he must have seen the sense in the words because he did set them down, and that meant that finally Blink, who had been zipping around outside of the dragons, too panicked and timid to try to force his way through, was finally given access to them. Perhaps it was true affection, but most likely it was the force of his father’s grief and fear that had put the hatchling in the state he was in. He couldn’t calm down until Temeraire himself calmed enough to pull his son into the safety of his body. By that point most of them had recovered enough for words, but Little was still in a terrible state. Granby had worn himself out with the intensity of his sobs, and Tharkay had always been excellent at forcing calm into himself, but Little was still shaking enough to set his teeth chattering. His hands, too, seemed to be palsied. Laurence’s heart filled with pity. Little’s role in the whole mess had been the least enviable. He reached for the man and drew him close. “You were a wonder. Truly, I’m in awe of you. I thought I functioned well under pressure, but that was incredible. You seemed to know exactly what to do.”  
Little shook his head, and once he started he couldn’t seem to stop. “No. No I had no idea. I could only think that I had to get it out somehow, and that I didn’t have any time. Every second wasted was another second you didn’t have breath. And it was so awful and it was my tomatoes and I didn’t even want to use the damn things because they weren't fucking ripe.”  
Laurence laughed, and once he started, Granby picked it up, albeit, with a heavy amount of hysteria sewn in. But Laurence’s laugh was genuine. He cradled Little’s face in his hands. How could he have ever thought the man plain? He was a jewel, truly. He would have to thank Granby for choosing him, for seeing into him and knowing his value. For bringing him to them all.  
“Augustine,” he said, and he tried to put everything, all he was feeling, into that name, because he wouldn’t risk his useless words ruining a moment like this. His happiness had been handed back to him. His entire future, everything he would do and experience, had all been Little’s gift. He must have been at least partially successful, because Little bit his lip, closed his eyes and then kissed Laurence on the mouth. More than once.  
It began a trend. Everyone wanted to kiss everyone. Little kissed Tharkay. Tharkay kissed Laurence. Laurence kissed Granby. And Granby even kissed Tharkay. Everyone kissed Temeraire, who was, clearly, the true victim of it all. And then everyone kissed Little because he was, just as clearly, the hero. Laila fetched them all tea. When Laurence saw her he experienced a relief so profound it left his knees weak again. Thank god he’d handed Apple over before the incident happened. Thank god. Thank all the gods. What if he had dropped her? What if she’d been right in the middle of it all when the door had been ripped out? His poor daughter. His poor poor daughter. When he reached for her Laila was quick to put her in his arms. He rocked with her, his face pressed to her tiny head, breathing in her soothing baby smell for as long as she would let him. when she first started to fuss nobody tried to take her from him. It was only when she really started to cry that Laila came and scurried away with her again.  
Tharkay took over making lunch. No one much wanted to eat, but tea they all accepted, or at least, tried to accept. Little’s hands still shook too much to hold anything, but with patient worship in his eyes, Granby held the lip of the mug to his lover’s mouth and encouraged him to drink.   
Then it was time for them all to lie down. Temeraire insisted. He wanted Laurence to rest. In truth, Laurence was the most recovered of them all, but he didn’t fight it. A little rest would do them no harm, and he wasn’t about to refuse Temeraire anything right then. The dragon would probably have free passes all year to do whatever he wanted. The guilt Laurence felt wasn’t going to fade for a long while. Had Temeraire asked it of him he would have agreed to wear those ridiculous chinese robes every day for the rest of his life if the dragon wished it. But thankfully it was only a nap that he wished for, and that meant Laurence got to pull everyone within arms reach. Tharkay hugged him from behind and Granby gripped his front. Little, behind Granby, could still reach over and rest a hand on Laurence’s hip. All the attention made him feel like a King, but it wasn’t enough to offset the guilt. He found himself regularly leaning over and twisting around to kiss or stroke bits of everyone. Granby was practically glued to him, and Tharkay’s arms were cutting into his circulation a bit but he only wanted to hold them closer.  
“This one was just terrified you’d kick it before he had the chance to experience your cock,” Little said.  
The attempt to bring a smile to Granby’s face almost worked, but not quite. It was still too soon.   
“Thankfully I cashed in right beforehand,” Tharkay said. This worked a little better. Granby wanted details. All the details. That was the moment Laurence learned that he was a regular topic of discussion between Granby and Tharkay.  
“Oh yes,” Granby said. “We’ve been helping each other decode you for years.”  
No wonder he had always felt slow and out of the loop. The others had the benefits of group effort, and he’d been tinkering away trying to figure it all out himself. He said so and got a kiss from each in apology, but Laurence was not so easily soothed. He reached over to grip Little around the wrist and asked, “Will you ally yourself with me against these two?”  
Little pretended to consider it. “As much as I like supporting the underdog...I’m sorry, Will, I’ve never been able to withstand pretty boys. I was so shy I barely spoke ten words in the first two years Granby and I were seeing each other. And don’t even ask me about Tharkay. He should have been safe because everyone knew he was yours body and soul, but I still couldn’t talk to him, even once he and Granby had become secret conspirers together. He must have thought me the rudest man in existence.”  
“He still fell for you,” Laurence pointed out. “So you must have done something right.”  
Little’s ears went red when he blushed. Tharkay came to his rescue. “Maybe I just have a thing for walking disasters.”  
“Or sexually unavailable men,” Granby put in.  
Tharkay liked that. “I do, don’t I? One a practicing heterosexual, the other a married invert.”  
“I don’t remember a wedding,” Little said. “But I did buy you a ring. I was too chickenshit to ever give it to you though.”  
Granby sat up. So did everyone else. “Well?” Tharkay said. “Let’s see it.”  
“It’s in the house.”  
“You have legs.”  
So Little was forced to get up and go back into the house. Laurence was amazed at how smoothly Tharkay managed it. “Do I also just hop to whatever thing you order me to do?”  
“Please,” Granby said. “You’re much worse. He doesn’t even have to say anything. He just looks at you and you ask ‘how high?’”  
Laurence kissed him to shut him up. The first few had just been relief and gratitude, but he was starting to crave them now. It felt good to kiss Granby. Different than Tharkay, but still good. Very good, even. He underestimated just how good because he was still kissing him when Little returned.  
“Don’t stop on my account,” Little said dryly, “I’ve only just come to propose to the love of my life. I’m sure it can wait.”  
“Are you going to get down on one knee?” Granby asked.  
“If you insist, I suppose.”  
Granby did insist, though he didn’t let Little get any of the words out before he was agreeing. He didn’t even get a chance to open the box. It had to wait until Granby was finished kissing him (which took a while) and by then everyone’s curiosity had been stoked to impossible heights.  
“I’m sorry for the duplicity,” Little said. “I just couldn’t risk getting you in trouble, and I figured a captain can never think too much of his dragon.”  
The ring was of gold and inset with a ruby the exact color of Izkierka’s spines. Her name was engraved on the outside, but the inside was inscribed with “My love forever A.L.”  
Granby loved it. He loved it so much he cried. Again. It wasn’t anything hysterical, just a few tears, but he was embarrassed nonetheless. “I’m such a baby today.”  
Everyone had to spend a minute telling him why he was an idiot for thinking so.  
“So in eight years do I get a ring as well?” Tharkay teased which set Little’s ears to flaming again.  
Granby liked that so much he pecked Tharkay on the mouth. Laurence wished they wouldn’t do that. Seeing the men he loved kiss each other made his hands tingle and his mouth dry. It also turned him into a gibbering idiot. He had to ask Little to repeat himself. Twice. Because his brain was full of buzzing.  
“I said when are you going to take Granby to bed?”  
Now that he heard, he wished he hadn’t. It was his turn to flame to the approximate color of the tomato he’d choked on. “Whenever he’d like, I’m sure.”  
“So immediately,” Tharkay said. “I suppose it’ll be my job to scrub the pavilion clean afterwards.”  
Little laughed, but not for long. Laurence was quick to get his revenge. “I don’t know, Tenzing. Augustine is so much more practiced than I. I’ll probably finish sooner than he does with you.”  
Well, that left all of them a blushing mess, and it also had the unexpected consequence of alarming all of the dragons, who had, before, put all the kissing down to relief and strange human ritual, but the talk of mating was a topic they recognized, and soon everything was in an uproar.  
“Tharkay? Mate with Augustine?” Immortalis exploded. There was so much indignation in the words it was a shock it could all fit in a body even as large as a dragon. “I think not. Augustine has John, and that is all he needs. He has assured me of this many many times. One nestmate and one child that is more than enough for a man. Humans cannot fit much more than that into their short lives. Really, it’s preposterous to even suggest it. Tharkay and Augustine. Bah. Do you not already have your own nestmate, Tharkay? And Laurence, why do you offer yours up so readily? Why would I want such a disloyal man to mate with my captain? No. No. Absolutely not.”  
Temeraire, of course, did not take well to such accusations, so that he was yelling at Immortalis even as he questioned Laurence. “How dare you say such things of Tharkay! Disloyal? When he dedicated his life to Laurence from the very moment of their meeting! Perhaps it is your Augustine who is the disloyal one. Granby was already our crew when Little poached him. Perhaps he would have become our nestmate first if little hadn’t stolen him.”  
This made Immortalis so angry he was fully prepared to take on a dragon many times his size. Izkierka didn’t much care about this topic. She’d known about Granby loving both Little and Laurence since her birth and had long grown accustomed to the idea, still, she couldn’t resist the urge to poke and prod at the others, inciting the argument to new levels.  
“I don’t really see why either Little or Laurence should get my Granby. They’re both old and can’t give him eggs.”  
She certainly got the reaction she was hoping for. Both Immortalis and Temeraire turned to her, coming together to fight the greater enemy, but Tharkay cut them off before either could get another word out. “Enough. Blink doesn’t need this only two days out of the shell. Immortalis, I’m sorry I didn’t consult with you. I know this isn’t an excuse, but it all happened so fast. I promise not to steal any more of Augustine than I already have. He is yours, as he always was. Temeraire, you know what Will is to me. I wouldn’t risk that for anything. But you also know how Will gets once he takes it into his head that one of us wants something. I tried to hide from him, but he discovered my feelings anyway. And Izkierka--” He had to pause to swallow down a small. “Must you insist on escalating every argument to the point of disaster?”  
Izkierka flicked her tale, looking smug. “It’s not my fault everyone wants my captain.”  
Granby laughed, as he always did. Laurence could count on one hand the number of times his friend had put solid effort into reprimanding her over the years.   
Blink was still agitated, and so, his lecture done, Tharkay swept over to where the creature was huddled against Temeraire’s leg and pulled his scaly head into his arms. “Come. I’ll hunt up something for you myself if these damn lizards are too busy squabbling to feed you.”  
That had Temeraire looking sheepish, but Immortalis was still furious. When Little went to stroke his leg, he was thrown up onto his dragon’s back and carried off to someplace where they could converse alone. They all tracked his flight across the sky.  
Tharkay wanted Granby to go after him. He thought Little was still too shaken by his ordeal to be alone. But Granby, though usually the first to volunteer to do something for his partner, shook his head. “Giving comfort to Immortalis is probably the best thing he can do for himself right now. Before they had any of us they had each other. Let them sort it out.”  
Laurence thought that was sound, and he thought he could do something similar by volunteering to go hunt with Temeraire, but the offer was shot down by everyone--most pointedly by Temeraire himself.  
“Hunt? When you were on the brink of death not an hour ago? I don’t think so!”  
And so Laurence was forced to stay home. Granby went up on Izkierka instead and promised to bring back a Tuna as large as a bathtub. Laurence offered to read to Temeraire, but even that was considered too much of a strain. however, he was allowed to recline against his dragon’s side as Temeraire recited poems from memory. Laurence tried to look attentive (poetry wasn’t exactly his strong suit) but mostly he watched Tharkay and Blink. The hatchling was rapt with attention. He always listened when his father spoke, but apparently poetry deserved a greater amount than the usual worship. Tharkay was stroking his head, but his eyes were far away.  
Laurence knew all had not been forgiven. He knew no one would blame him for choking, but it would be a long while before the scare he caused was forgotten. It didn’t help that Temeraire and Tharkay had excellent memories.  
Granby’s tuna wasn’t quite as big as a bathtub, but it was damn close. Laurence was amazed when Blink managed to put away all of it. Even Temeraire was impressed. “Well,” he said. “I suppose you won’t be stunted after all.”  
Blink took this grudging comment as the height of praise and showed so much happiness that Temeraire was embarrassed for him and swatted at him with his tail. Still, he pulled the hatchling close after Tharkay had wiped him down post-meal. Blink didn’t want to sleep, but food always made it impossible for him to keep his eyes open.


	9. The Spirit of Fair Play

“Any sign of Little?” Laurence asked once the hatchling was safely asleep. 

“No, and don’t expect to see him either,” Granby said. He was warming himself by the fire. His nose and ears always got red in the cold. Tharkay pushed a mug of tea into his hands. 

Izkierka had brought back fish for Temeraire as well--a rare occurrence, but something that was growing common after laying egg number two. She’d eaten her own fill out over the water, and, like her son, wanted a nap after her meal. She sprawled out beside/on top of Temeraire, with Blink nestled between them. Laurence found himself staring. He wasn’t the only one. None of them had ever seen a...a dragon  _ family  _ before. Even in china he hadn’t seen family groupings like this. (then again, his stay in China hadn’t really allowed him to see much of the everyday life there.) It was possible that the arrangement was natural in other parts of the world, but in England?

“That might be the most beautiful damn sight I’ve ever seen,” Granby said. 

“Really?” Tharkay asked, voice deceptively smooth. “I thought watching Will finish in my mouth would at least have warranted a tie.”

Granby’s cheeks went as red as his ears and he sputtered on his next mouthful of tea. It was as good a time as any to escape. He set the mug down and pushed up his shirt sleeves.“Right. I’d better get a good look at the house.”

It was only then that Laurence remembered the great gaping hole Temeraire had created when he ripped out the door to get to him. Thankfully the damage was mostly cosmetic. Most of the force had gone into snapping the hinges clean off. The structural integrity of the door frame, as well as the door itself (minus the talon shaped hole in the middle) were still sound. It was already late, so there would be no running into town to get fresh supplies. So Granby, being Granby, rigged up a creative solution. He dismantled one of the other doors from the house and did a swap. Laurence didn’t expect him to want to keep the door, but Tharkay backed Granby up and there was no fighting it. Laurence brushed his hand over the hole (the door now secured the pantry). He’d had many close brushes with death over the years but this one had been different. People expected to die in wars. They didn’t expect to die in their kitchens. He couldn’t stop thinking about Little saving him---saving them all, really. It really would have put a dent in things if he’d died. His life had been his own before, but ever since partnering with Temeraire irreplaceable people had come into his life. He was used to thinking and deciding things for himself, but if he continued in that way he’d hurt people. People he certainly didn’t want to hurt.

A hand touched his shoulder. Tharkay.

“Come eat.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Augustine?”

“John says he might not be back tonight. Immortalis has done this before.”

“Then shouldn’t one of us go after him?”

“John doesn’t think so, and he’s the expert.”

That was true enough. He ran his hand down Tharkay’s front. “And you? Are you the expert on me?”

He liked the idea of others consulting Tharkay to try and understand whatever mad stunt he’d just pulled.

Tharkay caught his hand. “I don’t know if you need an expert. Too predictable.”

Laurence caught a handful of his ass and shoved their bodies together. “And this? Did you predict this?”

“Why do you think I said it in the first place?”

Laurence smiled. “You make me so happy.”

Tharkay let his forehead fall to his shoulder. “Oh? You don’t seem very appreciative.”

The smile slipped from his face. “I’m sorry. I’ll be so much more careful in the future. You know I would never--”

“You never  _ mean  _ to do it, Laurence, but it’s like you don’t know how to go a month without trying to get bumped off. And I can’t get accustomed to it. How could I? It takes years off my life. Every time. You’re going to kill me.”

He felt a flare of anger. What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t like he  _ enjoyed  _ his near death experiences. He had already apologized, and he meant what he said. He  _ would  _ try to be careful. He’d already told Temeraire he didn’t mean to join up in any more wars. He meant to live a quiet life from now on. The life of a beat up old verteran who just wanted to appreciate the people he loved in the time he had remaining.

But he pushed down the anger. It wasn’t what he was really feeling anyway. He wrapped his arms around Tharkay. “Don’t say things like that. You have to outlive me. I always forget to put the cap on my ink and I can’t make the iron work the way you do. I’d be hopeless if you were gone.”

Tharkay sighed, but his arms came up around him in turn. “That’s true enough.”

By the time the kitchen was cleaned and the dragons fed and comforted, it was very late. So late that Laurence found himself dozing against Temeraire while Tharkay was saying goodnight to Blink. 

“Up you get, old man,” Granby said and pulled Laurence up by the armpits. “You’re too ancient to sleep anywhere but in a bed.”

“Augustine’s just as old as I am.”

“You’re more banged up than he is. I know you get stiff.”

Laurence was going to pull away once he was standing, but when Granby pulled his arm around his shoulders he decided it felt good and didn’t pull away. Granby brought him the basin to wash up and went to fetch him his pajamas. Laurence liked the attention. When Granby came back he caught the man around the waist and pulled him close. “Tell me. When you’re helpful, how does Augustine usually thank you?”

Granby went pink. Laurence loved how blush-y he got around him. Wanting to see it was more than half the reason he was able to spout lines like that. 

“I-I don’t know.”

He leaned in and dragged his nose down the line of Granby’s jaw. “Shall I guess?”

Granby clapped his hands over his face. When Laurence laughed he ducked away. 

“Don’t tease me. It’s not fair.”

“Fair? Did I promise to play fair?”

“It’s not right to do things to me when you aren’t affected at all.”

Laurence blinked. “Not affected?” He took Granby’s wrist and pressed the man’s hand to the pulse point in his neck. “Are we talking about the same person?” He took Granby’s other hand and pushed it up his shirt and watched Granby’s surprise bloom from the sudden uptick in his heart rate. He took a step closer. Their hips bumped. Another jolt in his heart rate. He let his eyes drop to Granby’s lips. “I may be older than you, but I’m not made of stone. If you’re right here, waiting for me to kiss you, I’m going to be  _ affected _ .”

He was close enough to feel Granby’s breath on his lips, warm and rapid. He could think of nothing but closing those last few inches. The hand on his chest stopped him.

“John?”

Granby stumbled back. “No. You’re not thinking straight.”

“I don’t need to think at all. I want you.”

Granby’s hands were shaking. He pressed them to his stomach. “No, you--you’re not like me. Not like Augustine or Tenzing either. That time, the first time--it was easy for you because you didn’t mean it.”

Laurence remembered that kiss. The one when he had been drunk and desperate, thinking of nothing but getting Tharkay back. Well, he was paying for it now. Actions always had consequences.

“That doesn’t count. I was thinking of Tenzing. It wasn’t--”

“It wasn’t about me. I know. But I was thinking of you, Will. When you kissed me, even though I knew it was nothing to you, it was important to me. You were my first love.”

“Were?” he said, his heart stumbling over the word, or rather, the tense of the word. 

Granby dropped his eyes. “Don’t do this.”

“Am I too late?”

“Things are good now with Blink and with Apple. With Tenzing and Augustine, too. So don’t be selfish. When you wake up and things get awkward it’ll affect everyone.”

“I’m already awake,” Laurence said. “John, I love--”

“ _ Don’t _ .”

Granby was breathing hard, but it was nothing like before. Just a minute ago Granby had wanted to be kissed, and he had wanted to kiss Granby. Simple. Uncomplicated. What had happened?

“Tenzing knows that I...He won’t be upset if we--”

“Really? And you believed him?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Granby laughed. It was nothing like his usual laugh. “It must be interesting in the world you live in. Where nobody lies and everyone lets you do what you want.”

His anger rose again. He didn't like getting angry. It made him do and say stupid things and he needed to be careful now. He couldn’t fuck up again.

“That sounds nice,” he said. “If I was in that world maybe you’d let me kiss you.”

Granby stiffened. Maybe he’d been hoping Laurence would lash out. No. He’d wanted Laurence to storm away. Because he was weakening. It was suddenly obvious. This was all a farce. Granby wanted him. Really, really, wanted him. He took a step forward.

Granby’s back hit the wall. Panic widened his eyes. “You can’t. If you change your mind--”

“I won’t.”

“Tenzing--”

“Is right here,” Tharkay said. He was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “And he doesn’t appreciate being used as an excuse.”

Laurence felt his chest expand, his heart suddenly lighter. Everything would be fine if Tharkay was here. “My love.”

“Having difficulty?”

He felt no embarrassment, just relief. “Yes.”

Tharkay pushed himself off the doorway and entered the room. “You’re trying too hard. Make him come to you.”

“If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be chasing him.”

Tharkay helped him out of his shirt, flicking open the buttons with his lovely practiced fingers. “You don’t know how to chase. When has that ever worked out for you?”

“I got you, didn’t I?”

Tharkay snorted. From anyone else it would have been obnoxious, but from him it was oddly charming. “You had me  _ before  _ you started all this recent nonsense. Think. Did you ever have to do anything to win Jane’s heart? John’s? No. You were just your usual ridiculous self.”

“But...that isn’t working now.”

“It’s working.”

“But he won’t--”

“ _ It’s working _ . Be patient.”

He frowned. He was tired of being patient. Tharkay smiled. “Brat,” he said, and kissed him. Laurence wasn’t expecting it. By the time his body reacted Tharkay was already pulling away.

“Go to bed. I just need to wash up.”

“You never  _ need  _ to wash up,” he grumbled. Nobody was letting him kiss them. “It’s like your body naturally repels dirt.”

Granby wasn’t pleased to be left alone with him again. “Don’t touch me,” he warned Laurence, and turned his back to change.

Laurence slipped into bed. He was still feeling petulant. He stared at Granby’s back.

“Stop that,” Granby said and pulled on his shirt.

“Stop what?”

“Staring at me.”

“I’m not even allowed to  _ look _ ?”

Granby turned around. His cheeks were pink. 

“Come here,” Laurence said.

“Didn’t you hear Tenzing?”

“He’s not here right now.”

“You’re impossible.”

There was a knock on the door. It was Laila delivering Apple for the night, freshly fed and washed. Laurence buried his face in her hair and breathed her baby smell deep into his lungs. He would never eat tomatoes again. He was so grateful to be alive.

Granby slipped into bed.

Laurence gave him a look. “Oh? So  _ now  _ it’s safe?”

“You won’t try anything with Apple around.”

“Want to bet?”

Tharkay came in smelling of soap and loveliness. Laurence followed him with love stricken eyes.

“You are so beautiful,” he said into Tharkay’s skin. “I never want to stop looking at you.”

“Go to sleep, you fool,” Tharkay said, but his kiss was soft. He took Apple from Laurence to bring to the bassinet where she usually slept now and pulled the blanket over him.


	10. A Show for the Boys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look. The chapter that necessitated the "explicit" warning for this fic. Enjoy

They did sleep, but Laurence only dozed. Maybe it was all the excitement of the day but his body wouldn’t let him slip into the deep sleep he craved. It meant he heard it when Immortalis returned. He heard the flap of the wings and the mild tremor of the landing. There was the creak of the new front door downstairs and Little’s soft tread on the stairs. Laurence prepared to greet him, but Little didn’t come. After a few minutes he slipped out of the room and went to investigate. Little was lying face down in the bed of the old room, all his clothes still on, including the carabiner that hung from his belt. He had seen children fall asleep this way, like little Emily and Dyer after a long day aboard the dragon all those years ago.

“What are you doing? Come to bed,” Laurence said and pulled the man to his feet. 

Little was half sleeping as he stumbled after him. He wasn’t a night person, and the late hour had him all befuddled. It was cute. 

He propped Little up against the wall to help him out of his clothes. 

“ _ Hey _ .” He had to nudge the face that had dropped onto his shoulder. He felt laughter bubbling up in his chest. “Don’t go to sleep yet.” He had his hands on Little’s belt, but with the man slumped over like this he couldn’t see what he was doing. It meant fumbling around a lot. Little was heavy. He finally got the belt open, but Little shifted and he lost his grip. “Will you just--keep still.” He hunted around for the top of his pants and paused. Little was hard.

“John,” Little breathed. The man turned his face and kissed his neck.

Laurence froze. For one wild moment he thought he would laugh. He didn’t get the chance. Little bucked up into his hand. Granby hadn’t been lying. His partner wasn’t just a dab hand at cooking. Laurence didn’t have intimate experiences with many penises, but even he knew this one was larger than average. The mouth on his neck was working its way up to his jaw.

“Wait,” he blurted. “I’m not--”

Little kissed him. It was nothing like before. This was a kiss for Granby. Wet, deep, Laurence felt his whole body shudder. He was suddenly shoved back. Little was looking at him wide-eyed. finally awake. “Will?”

Laurence felt hot, like his skin was burning. He was hard too.

“Don’t stop.”

The words didn’t belong to him. He turned. Granby was sitting up, his whole face red and his hand pressed to his mouth. But he wasn’t the one who had spoken. Tharkay looked more composed. His hair was still tucked into its braid and his skin was clear, but his chest was rising and falling with a rapidity that betrayed his feelings. “Don’t stop,” he said again.

Laurence swallowed. He remembered the kiss Granby had given Tharkay, how it had made him feel. He turned back to Little. The man had already made the connection. He took hold of Laurence’s chin and tilted it up. “What say you, Will? Our boys want a show.”

Laurence felt himself flush, and not the pretty pink that Tharkay turned sometimes. 

“Oh?” Little said and leaned in closer. His mouth was right by his ear. “Should I be flattered? You want this for yourself, don’t you?”

Laurence stumbled back a step. “I--” This was completely outside of his experience. Tharkay was so subtle and Granby was always shying away. Little was like neither of them.

Little stepped forward and shoved at Laurence’s chest. His knees buckled against the edge of the bed, but Little caught him before he could fall. Their bodies were flush together. “John was right. You  _ are  _ pretty.” And let go.

Laurence fell to the bed. He was given no time to think. Little climbed on top of him. Old instincts surfaced. He bucked up, a surprised and ill-conceived attempt to push him off. Little met the thrust with one of his own. He ground down on him and swallowed the gasp Laurence made with another kiss.

“You’re going to be easy, aren’t you.” He only pulled back an inch or so. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you a virgin.”

He ground down again, almost hard enough to hurt. Laurence was strangled by his clothes. He felt out of control, and his hips were moving on their own. He wanted Little’s mouth back. He’d never been kissed like that. Like he could be dominated and forgotten. 

On the next thrust Little slid a hand under him and took a handful of his ass. The groan just slipped out of him. Little laughed. “A virgin and a slut. What a contradictory man you are.”

And then his hands left him completely. He climbed off.

It was too sudden. Laurence’s hands reached for him, the man’s name on his lips, but Little shoved him back down to the mattress. “Did I tell you to get up?”

Laurence gasped. He was so aroused it hurt. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. 

The pants were yanked down his legs and tossed over the side of the bed.

“Pretty cock,” was Little’s assessment. “My John has good taste.”

John. Tenzing. He jerked his eyes over. Too late. Little had a hand in Granby’s hair. “Bon appetit,” he said, and pushed Granby’s mouth down--right onto Laurence’s cock.

Laurence’s back jerked off the bed.  _ “Fuck _ ,” he hissed, his old sailor’s mouth back to rescue him. Someone caught his face, pulled it back, and kissed him. Tharkay.

He clutched at him. His nestmate. He felt like a drowning man clinging to a rock. But not for long.

Little hauled him back. “Don’t,” he told tharkay. “I don’t want him to finish yet.”

‘Is that all?” Tharkay said. “I got my hopes up. I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

Little choked. His ears went bright red. “Tenzing…”

Tharkay kissed him. Little was too shocked at first to do anything but be kissed. It was only when Tharkay started to pull back that Little reacted. His hands caught both sides of Tharkay’s face and kissed him with a ferocity that Laurence now knew the feeling of. But he couldn’t focus on that. No. His attention was being directed elsewhere.

“ _ John _ ,” he gasped. His hands clutched at the man’s hair. He felt like his soul was being pulled out through his cock. He was already too close. He felt unhinged. “John, wait, I’m going to--”

But Granby didn’t wait. If anything he took him deeper into his throat, something Laurence had never experienced. It pushed him over the edge. 

He came.

“John,” he was pushing at the man’s shoulders, embarrassed and flustered by his curtailed performance. 

John swallowed, and that did something to him. Laurence yanked him up and kissed him with an intensity that scared him. He didn’t want to frighten him. He didn’t think he could take it if Granby suddenly pulled away.

But Granby didn’t pull away. He kissed him and kissed him and kept right on kissing him, climbing into his lap and wrapping his arms tightly behind Laurence’s head.

Laurence wanted to reciprocate. “Here, let me…” He tried to push at Granby’s shoulders, but the man wouldn’t budge. “John.”

Granby made a decision. He grabbed Laurence by the wrist and led his hand to the erection pushing up against his stomach. “Make me come.”

“I can use my mouth if you--”

“No. I need that up here.”

This time Granby was the one to kiss him too hard. Laurence’s head cracked against the wall. He didn’t care. He was too busy kissing him back. 

Granby’s cock was a hot poker burning his palm. He never wanted to let go. He kissed him, stroked him, and told him just how much he liked it. “You’re driving me crazy.”

Granby shoved his shoulders, too, against the wall and began to fuck up into his hand. “Let me come. I want to come.”

Laurence was confused. Did Granby need permission to finish? Maybe this was some leftover from Little. He didn’t think about it too hard because Granby was waiting, half out of his mind with want.

“Come for me,” Laurence said. “Come for me, John.”

Granby came, painting hot stripes against Laurence’s chest. They were kissing again, shallow open mouthed kisses. They were both too breathless for more.

“I love you,” Granby gasped. “I love you so much.”

He was hauled back. Little’s arm was like a bar over Granby’s chest. “You made a mess again.”

Granby shivered. “Thank you. It was so good. Thank--”

Little kissed him.

For a moment all Laurence could do was watch, entranced by the perfect picture Granby presented, his body stretched between him and Little, a canvas for the mess on his chest and the pinkened skin beneath it. Tharkay touched his face.

“Will?”

That single word swung all of his attention. “Tenzing.” His arms were already closing around him. “Kiss me.”

But Tharkay didn’t kiss him. Not yet. “Was it good? With Augustine?”

Laurence wanted to say he would talk later. If Tharkay wouldn’t volunteer his mouth he would take it himself. But then he realized the significance of the question and balked. He had just stolen Little away from Tharkay. He had kissed him, touched him, and (there was no way around it) had gone through the motions of fucking even if it had all been outside their clothes. And, as if that wasn’t presumptuous enough, he had done all these things _before_ Tharkay had the chance to try them out with Little himself. As far as offenses went, it was a big one.

“My heart, I didn’t mean to--I’m sure he’ll enjoy it all so much more with you. Please think nothing of, that is, don’t hold yourself back if you want to--”

“What on earth is he babbling about?” Little asked, pulling his mouth off of Granby with a sound not unlike that of a champagne cork. Granby’s lips had darkened to a deeper red from his partner’s ministrations. They looked bigger too, swollen.

Normally the sight would have arrested Laurence, but he was still concerned with setting things to rights. But Tharkay cut in before he could speak again.

“You didn’t force yourself for my sake, did you?”

“I--well, no. It felt really quite…” He shook his head. He would not be distracted. “Tenzing, don’t you want to be with him now?” Tharkay was looking too closely. It was making him nervous. “What is it?”

Tharkay wasn’t one to mince words. He looked Laurence right in the eye and said it. “Would you let Augustine fuck you?”

It was enough to bring even Granby, who was being stroked back to hardness again, take notice. Little’s hands stuttered to a halt. “What?”

Tharkay forged ahead. “You know how it is with me. I can’t give that to him. I don’t think I could ever...receive. I didn’t think I could penetrate either until today, with you. And even that I don’t know how often I will be able to…”

Laurence took his hand. “Tell me what you want, Tenzing.”

Tharkay ducked his head. “I...I don’t really know. I never thought that I would have--that you would give this--him--to me. It’s all so sudden.”

“But?” Laurence prodded.

“I like watching him touch you. No. That isn’t the right word. I feel... _ inflamed _ . Like every bit of my skin is being pricked and scorched. It’s like I can feel him through you, or like it’s even better knowing he’s buying me your enjoyment. I never thought that you would--Will, you don’t know the value of the gift you’ve given me.”

Laurence was astonished. He had, by taking,  _ given  _ something to Tharkay? He wasn’t sure he understood, but he recognized the situation for what it was--absolution for what he’d done. Tharkay wasn’t angry. In fact, he was pleased and...wanted more?

“You want to see Augustine inside me?”

“Yes.”

He was surprised by the surety. It seemed Tharkay  _ did  _ know what he wanted, even if he wasn’t sure how to express it. That settled it for Laurence. He turned to Little. “Augustine?”

Little was gaping. “Tenzing…you needn’t--I would never push you to do more than what was comfortable for you. Just being able to touch, no, even to look at you without the usual guilt is more than I ever expected.”

Granby pulled out of his arms. Not because he was upset by what he was hearing, but because he wanted to get to Laurence. “Can I prepare him, Tenzing? Or is that something you want for yourself?”

Tharkay blinked. “Oh. I--I don’t mind. But I didn’t mean it had to be right now. I was going to ask if you and Laurence wanted to continue where you...that is, if you want to try him first. You prefer to receive, right? I think that works better with Laurence’s preferences, though he was willing to amend himself to accomodate me.”

“No,” Laurence said. “I didn’t have to accomodate you. Whatever you wanted I would have--I don’t think the position much matters to me so long as I’m with you.”

It was impossible to tell in the near darkness whether or not Tharkay blushed, but from the way he ducked his head Laurence wanted to believe that he did. He was so beautiful. He wanted to tell him, but he was distracted by the hands that gripped his thighs. He turned and found Granby’s shy smile. “I feel like I’m going to wake up at any moment,” the man admitted.

Laurence reached for him, but Granby gave his thighs a tug and he came away from the headboard and fell to the mattress. A hand tilted his face up--Little. “Such a pretty face. Such a pretty mouth. Almost pretty enough for Tenzing’s cock. What say you, my love?”

Laurence jerked as fingers brushed against his entrance. “More than pretty enough for any cock,” Granby agreed, and kissed the inside of Laurence’s thigh.

Little thumbed Laurence’s lip and smiled down at him. He seemed... _ hungry _ , but when he turned to Tharkay the expression gentled. “I want to see your pleasure. Can I?”

Tharkay looked down. He was fingering the edges of his nightshirt. He seemed to be pondering it over. But then in one smooth motion he pulled the nightshirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. Laurence had seen Tharkay’s body many times, but not so many that he could help his distraction. Poor Little had less experience and was badly shaken. “Oh,” he said. His hand seemed to rise of its own accord, but he stopped himself before he could touch. Tharkay took the hand by the wrist and pulled it the rest of the way. Little’s fingers splayed out over his chest. “I am not... _ good  _ at receiving pleasure,” Tharkay said. Some of his hair had fallen out of its plait to frame his face. “I think it’s the same for you. We prefer to touch rather than be touched.”

Little nodded. It looked like it was taking all his focus to keep his hand still. Tharkay smiled at him, it was softer than the moonbeams coming through the window. “Some would say we are not well-suited because of that. I used to wonder about it sometimes, before. I would imagine what it might be like if I had met you before you found Granby. It would be no good, I told myself. We would just stare at each other, paralyzed, or I would let you take me and panic the whole time.”

“I would  _ never _ ,” Little growled. “As if I could take pleasure in the wake of your discomfort.”

“I know. That’s why I said I only imagined it. It helped me come to terms with the fact that I would never have you. Why I would never have  _ either  _ of you, and yet, here we are, and I’m so aroused I can barely speak. I have never wanted anything like--just picturing you inside of him, I feel as if I’ll--”

Little’s kiss was just a whisper of lips. His hand was still exactly where Tharkay had placed it. “Don’t blink, Tenzing. Keep your eyes on me. It’s for you. All of it.”

Laurence was listening to this exchange, or trying to listen, but it was proving difficult with Granby’s tongue inside him.

“-- _ John!” _

__ “You’re such an innocent, Will. Has no one ever done this to you?” 

Laurence had made a terrible discovery. The more his self-possession slipped, the more Granby seemed to gain. The adorable shyness Granby had shown him before was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a lascivious demon with a mouth of dark magic. Slick fingers were prodding at him now, joining the tongue that was making sparks dance across his vision. “I feel like a boy unwrapping gifts at Christmas,” Granby said. “Except none of my presents were as pretty as you. I didn’t know you could make such sounds, Will. No wonder Tharkay couldn’t escape you.”

“Please,” Laurence said and found Granby’s shoulder, only he wasn’t sure what he was asking for, or even  _ who  _ he was asking for. It was all he could do to keep sucking air into his lungs. He was supposed to be an old man, but already he was roused again--worse, it was a strident and straining arousal that left him no room to think.

“Polite, even in bed. You really are hopeless,” Little said, turning back to him. “When I see something so tidy and contained I can’t help but want to make a mess of it. John, my love, my little vixen, you’re certainly taking your time about it.”

“Stuff and balls, you always tease me twice as badly.”

Little pulled Granby’s face up and kissed him, or rather, put his mouth on him. Laurence wasn’t sure something so messy and lewd could count as a kiss. He felt his face flame and tried not to think about where the mouth Little was kissing had just been. But it was easy not to think, because even though that dangerous mouth had been removed from him, Granby’s fingers were still hard at work, and he was mortified by the wet squelching sound that was audible even over Granby’s soft groans.

“Augustine.  _ Augustine.” _

__ Little had Granby’s cock in hand again. “Don’t look at me like that, John. I already promised Tenzing I would stick it in Laurence first. Pray to god that I grow a second cock and I’ll satisfy you both at once. Until then you’ll have to be patient.”

“But god doesn’t listen to sinful inverts.”

“If I were god I would  _ only  _ listen to sinful inverts. Christ, John, look at you.”

Laurence was looking, and it was true that Granby was certainly a sight. The semen on his chest had dried, but his skin glistened with a light sweat and the flush that came with it highlighted every part of him that was straining from his lover’s ministrations. But he wasn’t able to look for long. A curtain of dark hair obstructed his view, and then Tharkay was straddling him. There could not exist a more welcome distraction. “My love--” but he cut himself off with a gasp as Tharkay took hold of them both in a single capable, and deliciously slick hand, and claimed his mouth as well.

It was more than he could stand, Tharkay’s hand, mouth, and cock, together with Granby’s fingers and soft moans were going to make short work of him. He didn’t understand how it had come about. Perhaps Granby was right, and it  _ was  _ all a dream. He certainly couldn’t imagine what he could have done to buy himself a reward like this. Perhaps he had bought it with his near death. If so, he would almost choke a thousand times if it would lead to nights like this afterward. He was sure things couldn’t possibly get any better. He wouldn’t survive a greater pleasure than this. But then he heard a voice as smooth as lacquered wood say, “That’s enough, boys, give me room to work,” and he was delighted to be proven wrong.


	11. Lustful Demons

Laurence woke to pandemonium. He had Tharkay’s hair in his mouth, John’s legs knotted with his own, and  _ something  _ was digging into his back. He wasn’t sure what had woken him, possibly Apple. He could hear her snuffling in her bassinet. He turned to look and found a great big dragon eye staring at him through the window.

His laugh woke the others.

“Shaddup,” Granby muttered and bit down on his shoulder to punish him.

Laurence’s yelp had Little grinning. “I forgot to warn you. He’s a biter.” He kissed the top of Granby’s head and eased out of the bed. “Don’t worry. I’ve got her.” He went straight to Apple and scooped her up. “Are you hungry, little flower?” 

Laurence drank in the sight of the very naked Little and found himself blushing. Actually, he likely had never stopped. He would sport permanent color until the end of his days. He was certain of it. There was no way he could look any of them in the eye now after what he had become last night. With the light of morning all around his embarrassment was swaddled around him like the world’s worst blanket. He pushed his face back into Tharkay’s hair and vowed never to come out.

“Oh dear. Your poor sensibilities,” Little said.

Beneath Laurence, Tharkay stirred. “Will?”

Laurence kissed him, a soft whisper light kiss Tharkay couldn’t much complain of. The man didn’t like to be consumed before he’d brushed his teeth. “Are you well? Did I wake you?”

Tharkay opened his eyes and smiled. The sight startled Laurence. Tharkay was too pretty to be smiling. Laurence was an old man with an old heart, it wasn’t safe to look upon such things.

“You were something else last night. A succubus, maybe.”

Laurence pressed his face into Tharkay’s shoulder and groaned. “Pray forget it my love. I don’t know what came over me.”

“All of us, in turns, and sometimes simultaneously,” Little said.

Tharkay laughed. “We certainly did. You were frosted like a cake.”

Laurence felt Granby’s arm snake around his chest and turned to his potential savior. “Stop them, John. They’re bullying an old man.”

The arm squeezed tighter, but it wasn’t safety he was being drawn into. Granby kissed him, long and deep. Apparently he did  _ not  _ share Tharkay’s sensitivities about morning hygiene. Laurence broke away with a gasp.

“Wait. Temeraire--”

A weight settled near his feet. Little with his precious bundle. “Please, Will. A little dragon voyeurship isn’t going to stop him. I’ve had John suck me off with Izkierka actively whining in his ear.”

That might have been true for Granby, but it certainly wasn’t true of Laurence. With a twist and a great leap that belonged to a man half his age, he vaulted off of the bed and grabbed the nearest pair of trousers. They were a couple of inches short around the ankle, but better than nothing. He was still buttoning them when, one-handed, he wrenched open the window. “Morning, my dear. Is all well?”

Temeraire sniffed. Then he blinked. “Did all of London have a go at you last night?”

Behind him, Little burst out laughing. It was a rare sound, and the first time Laurence had ever been the cause of it. “Apologies, Temeraire. We might have gotten a bit carried away.”

Granby stretched until something in his back cracked, leaving him sprawled atop the sheets. His modesty had disappeared the previous night, and it didn’t look like it would be returning anytime soon, a change Laurence couldn’t help but support. He found his eyes tracing the many little red marks that covered Granby, seemingly everywhere. Laurence knew he was responsible for at least a third of them, maybe half. The man marked up very easily.

Granby caught him looking and winked. “Come over here and I’ll give you a real reason to appreciate me.”

Laurence felt a certain part of his anatomy twitch. Luckily, he was wearing pants now, and couldn’t be so easily betrayed. He swallowed and turned away from temptation. “Temeraire, how are the others? Is Blink well?”

“Immortalis is sulking, and Izkierka went off to hunt for Blink. He isn’t awake yet, but we should be ready for when he is. She made me promise to keep an eye on you three before she--Granby, what are you doing?”

Laurence whipped around. Granby was not where he’d left him. Instead he had unearthed Tharkay from the blankets and was sitting between his thighs. Even as he watched, Granby leaned down and pressed a kiss to Tharkay’s neck. His hands were already busy, massaging at Tharkay’s thighs.

All the moisture left Laurence’s mouth. “John.”

Granby didn’t look up from his holy work. He was steadily working more and more kisses into the lovely expanse of Tharkay’s skin. His hands too were working steadily upward. His thumbs were now brushing the inner creases of Tharkay’s thighs--ministrations that were slowly bringing certain changes with them. Tharkay’s sigh was soft, but his eyes had fallen shut and his hips were tilted up a bit, presumably to give Granby’s talented hands more room to roam.

Laurence couldn’t breathe. His brain was firing, but not with any useful information, there were few thoughts that could be organized into words, but one noted that the men he loved looked very-- _ dangerously _ \--good together.

There was a groan that somehow, miraculously, hadn’t issued from his own chest. Little was standing near the bed, and even as Laurence’s eyes flickered to him, the man stumbled a step or two back. “You wretched minx, is this payback for last night?”

Granby didn’t answer him aloud. Instead he shifted back a bit and pressed a kiss to the same crease his fingers had been in moments before. His tongue flashed then, a deceptively sweet line of pink that brought another sigh out of Tharkay.

Little pressed a hand over his eyes. There was a flush working its way down his neck. “Damn it, John. You can’t do this to me while I’m holding Apple. What kind of father are you turning me into?”

Granby finally turned his head, but he didn’t lift it from Tharkay, which meant his nose brushed against the man’s arousal “Go hand her off to Laila, then. She’s got to eat anyway.”

Little rubbed at his eyes, swore again, and (keeping his eyes tightly shut) felt around on the floor for clothes. With a little difficulty he found the pants he’d kicked off the night before, but he made the mistake of opening his eyes to put them on. At this point Granby had pulled them both onto their sides and, with a hand knotted in the man's hair, was moving against Tharkay’s front with slow sinuous thrusts.

Little gaped. Laurence was beyond gaping. In another moment he was going to rip through the pants he was wearing. They had started off a little tight, but were much, much more confining now.

“I see you mean to mate again,” Temeraire said with a sigh. “Very well. But I warn you, when Izkierka gets back she’s not going to be as patient as me. Shall I call for Laila? Apple, at least, can be spared this.”

With a truly stupendous effort, Little turned his back on the scene in the bed and managed to get his pants on. “Forgive me, Apple,” he muttered to the bundle in his arms, happily tugging on a lock of his hair. “Your father is a sinner beset on all sides by lustful demons.”

Granby laughed. “You can beset yourself on me anytime. Just put her down in the bassinet.”

But Little did no such thing. With a show of self-discipline Laurence could not hope to emulate, the man steeled himself and fled from the room, carrying his daughter with him.

“He’ll be back,” Granby assured the lovely form in his arms. “In the meantime, we can still torture Will. He’s turning a wonderful color. How do you think he’d react if I took you in my mouth?”

Tharkay’s hair was thoroughly mussed, and his chest was rising and falling as if in exercise. “Much the same as he did last night, I expect.”

“Ah, but yesterday I didn’t also have my fingers in your arse.”

It was high and past the line of which Laurence could be expected to tolerate. With only a quick glance to make sure Temeraire had indeed given them their privacy once again, he strode to the bed, seized Granby by the ankles, and  _ tugged _ .

The grinning captain came to him without a trace of resistance. “You’re right, Tenzing,” he said, delighted with himself. “It worked even better than you said it would.”

Too late, Laurence realized he’d been set up. Trapped. Bamboozled. And, if given the chance, he would only too readily fall into such a trap again. He looked down the length of Granby’s body. There were still a few patches of skin free from marks. He meant to correct that oversight. “Augustine’s right. You  _ are  _ a minx.”

Thoroughly unrepentant, Granby’s grin grew still wider. “You know, all you’ve done is pull me down to perfect cock-sucking height.” Laurence flicked his eyes over to his nest-mate. Tharkay had flipped over onto his back. His arousal made a lovely contrast to the pale skin of his belly, and his nipples had hardened to pale brown beads.

Laurence forced his eyes back to his grinning and much-too-proud partner. He gave the man another jerk, and this time Granby’s ass was lifted clear off the bed, and up near the level of Laurence’s own hips. “My dear John, whatever makes you think that was an accident?”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was the last of it, and a long journey it was. For all of you who waited a long time for the promised second part, I hope it was worth it.   
> I know Tharkay and Laurence are the ones everyone looks at, and I love them together, but I can't write Laurence without Granby. It just doesn't seem right. And that's why part two needed to happen. Because even when Laurence is paired with tharkay and Granby is paired with Little it isn't really a happy ending to me. Not a complete one.   
> I know relationships are difficult enough when there's just a pair, and two pairs living in the same house--never mind the same room--is maybe a nightmare a lot of the time. But I didn't want it to be two pairs cohabitating. I'm sure the story doesn't really end where I left it. There are still loads of things the four of them need to sort out. Issues that built over years and aren't going anywhere overnight. But I think the building blocks are there and that, even without too much supervision, they'll come out alright in the end.  
> Thank you guys for coming on this journey with me.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a very, very long time in coming. Sorry for the wait everyone, I've been working on a lot of other projects, but it's all completed now and I'll be putting up the chapters quickly. Enjoy!


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